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    Handball

    .

    (Has this been on the new board yet? If so, ignore ...)

    Despite not knowing the rules really (it looks like you can just about walk anywhere with the ball and throw yourself at the goal to score from point blank range, no probs, and the middle third of the court is simply not used), I really like this game. Like basketball, the scoreline can change a lot, reflecting the different waves of domination during the game. And there's a shot I really like, too: the winger comes in and scores from an impossible angle. He can also do it with a trick spin shot, which can make him look like a real prat if it doesn't quite work.

    In Portugal, the main football teams have a handball team, too, normally coached by eastern Europeans. It's nice that a team outside the Big Three, ABC (Braga), have been the Big Noise over the last few years ... although Benfica won the title this season(well, they had to let them win something, the poor blighters), beating ABC in the play-off.

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    #2
    Handball

    I would watch this if it was on in the US, but it's only ever on at the Olympics.

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      #3
      Handball

      It's almost as tedious to watch as basketball... it reminds me of a game we played at school as kids where you just hurled a ball around as hard as you could and tried to hit people in the face with it.....

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        #4
        Handball

        That would be dodgeball, trimster.

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          #5
          Handball

          ... Perhaps Dodgeball should be an olympic sport!

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            #6
            Handball

            When I lived in France, I watched a fair bit of it - not particularly willingly.

            The main problems I had with it were a) the action is a bit repetitive and b) I really couldn't work out why decisions would go one way or the other when there were collisions around the D (or whatever the area is called.

            I liked the shooting though, and I liked the fact that the best teams are not always from the usual suspect of sporting excellence.

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              #7
              Handball

              It's big in Romania, especially the women's version. I think one of the Romanian club sides are among the best in Europe. (I don't pay much attention to be honest, but it does seem to be on a lot, and there are often European games that get hyped up a lot)

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                #8
                Handball

                I once thought that "team handball" (as it is called in the US) was my best shot at an Olympic team, since it is essentially unknown in the US, with teams cobbled together in years when the US is hosting the Summer Olympics. That didn't prove to be consistent with reality, though.

                Since I've been in Europe, I've an identical reaction to Etienne. It's very hard to figure out what is and is not a foul (this is even more true for water polo, where the nasty stuff occurs underwater). It's also another of those sports that the Great German Sporting Public becomes very excited about when they are good, then drops it like a stone when they fail to win championships (see also tennis, ski jumping, Formula One, etc).

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                  #9
                  Handball

                  In Ireland handball is basically squash without a racquet.
                  Team handball is one of those sports that I would probably watch during the olympics, and not miss it for the next four years.

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                    #10
                    Handball

                    I was a handball goalkeeper for two years in my teens. I will not recommend it to anybody. It is a mental business.

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                      #11
                      Handball

                      Handball goalkeeper must be about the most undignified position in any sport. There you are in your tracky bottoms, jumping up and down and waving your arms and legs about, and 99 times out of a hundred the attacker dummies you and scores anyway.

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                        #12
                        Handball

                        A cross between Groundhog Day and Being Gabor Kiraly, then.

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                          #13
                          Handball

                          Yeah, it looked to me like the goalie basically just does a star jump each time someone chucks the ball at the net and hopes it hits something, preferably not the face.

                          I'd still prefer it to keeping in lacrosse (as my gran did to international standard) or, even worse, hurling which seems to require utter insanity.

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                            #14
                            Handball

                            Incidentally, Ursus, Great Britain is following a similar line for their handball team for 2012. Last year they decided to invite anyone who was a certain height and had represented at least their county in one sport or another to trial to form a development squad - even if they'd played no handball at all before then.

                            I think Dwain Chambers may have missed his chance on that on though.

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                              #15
                              Handball

                              I have played goal in lacrosse (not to international standard), and provided one is properly equipped, it isn't that bad. One does need to have faith in one's equipment and be able to suspend the instinctive reflex to avoid hard objects flying at high speed towards one's head, but that is really no different from ice hockey. It can, however, be quite boring, as there is much less to do than in ice hockey, (field) hockey or (I imagine) handball.

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                                #16
                                Handball

                                .

                                ... the goalie basically just does a star jump each time someone chucks the ball at the net and hopes it hits something, preferably not the face.
                                Other bits too, I imagine.

                                The fact that 99% of the time the ball gets past the 'keeper must also have a lot to do with the skill of the thrower, I would have said. It's not a big goal, and the fat bloke does jump about like a dervish, waving all his flippers.

                                .

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                                  #17
                                  Handball

                                  Goalie in men's lacrosse is far more treacherous than in women's lacrosse. I played a little bit of it. Most goalies don't wear much protection - helmet, throat guard, chest protector and junk protector. If you take a shot in the arm or leg, it leaves a bit doughnut shaped welt.

                                  Women's lacrosse sticks have much shallower pockets (by rule), so it's harder for the shooter to control the ball and they can't really rear back and crank it like the shooter can in the men's game. And of course, the gender's being what they are, men can put more power into a shot. At the high level, a shot can be moving at over 100 mph.

                                  Unlike hockey, where .900 is roughly the established threshold for a good save percentage (at the NHL level), in lacrosse, the threshold of quality is usually around .600. The best goalie in the country this year is Brown's goalie who stopped a little more than 2/3 of the shots on goal. 50% is considered respectable, depending on how good the defense is.

                                  The expectation for goalies in women's lacrosse is a little lower, mainly because it's so hard to play defense in women's lacrosse (the rules strictly limit contact to minimal stick checks) that the object of offense in women's lacrosse is possession and to move the ball inside and get a point blank shot.

                                  In men's lacrosse, there are more hard outside shots. A bit more like hockey in that way.

                                  Which is also why women's lacrosse is slow and about as interesting to watch as grass grow, whereas men's lacrosse can move very fast and be entertaining.

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                                    #18
                                    Handball

                                    A cross between Groundhog Day and Being Gabor Kiraly, then.

                                    That's a brilliant description, UA.

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                                      #19
                                      Handball

                                      Being a handball goalkeeper is in a sense quite similar to being a footie goalkeeper in a penalty shoot-out. You will be remembered for the few shots you save rather than all those you concede.

                                      Still, trying to make youself as big as possible in order to get in the way of a ball hard as a stone thrown at you from two metres distance is a life-defying activity.

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