Kia ora Koutou, New Zealand Handball community
The depths of winter are now well and truly upon us, but the indoor handball calendar has plenty in it to keep you all warm!
The Tokyo Olympics are now just a month away, Covid outbreaks permitting. This is the one time every four years (ignoring last year’s postponement) when the New Zealand public get to see quality internationals handball (well, any sort of handball, when it comes down to it!) on mainstream TV. We are expecting a corresponding surge in interest in handball, and we are developing strategies to capitalise on that. You can all play your part by encouraging all your contacts to try and catch that action as part of the Olympics coverage. New Zealand might not be competing this time around, but maybe one day...
Closer to home, we had a very successful one-day Junior Cup tournament in Wellington at the end of May. With a wealth of players having international experience on board, the Wellington hosts took out the title, but there’s a host of emerging talent from around the country that suggests they may have their work cut out to retain the pre-season Cup next year. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough interest expressed this time round to run a women’s junior tournament, but hopefully, that will happen next time.
And the next opportunity for the juniors is now not far away, with Auckland Handball set to host the junior regionals on 28-29 August. At this stage, we are looking at Men’s and Women’s U18 and U21 divisions (age eligibility determined as at 1 January 2021), provided we get enough numbers, with further details to come. The onus is on our Regional Associations to make this happen, but we encourage anyone interested in taking part to register that interest with their local regional body. Big thanks to Auckland Handball for making this possible.
On the senior side of things, we have an exciting end of season programme lined up for you. Hot on the heels of the Wellington Handball Federation’s Club League final at the start of September, we have the National Club Champs in Wellington 10-12 September. We have had interest from a couple of clubs wanting to come over from Australia, and we are hoping to be able to host an international invitation event on the Friday night of the tournament – confirmation to follow. Meantime, all Clubs thinking of taking part, please ensure you will be able to field a team bright and early on the Friday morning, with the Friday set as a full day of competition over multiple courts to fit everything in – with the possibility of a couple of the Wellington teams needing to compete on the Thursday evening. We then have the Regional Champs in Christchurch 9-10 October to round out the domestic calendar before we turn our sights back on Beach.
In between the Club and Regional Champs, the Men’s National Training Squad have secured a showcase event, with the Men’s Team set to play a Barbarian’s selection in an Exhibition Game at the Ashburton Events Centre on the evening of Saturday 25 September, as part of the Ashburton Festival. It should be a great event, with the NTS holding a training camp in Ashburton around that event – it’s great to be able to show our support for a community that has had a hell of a time of it over the past month. We encourage all our handball community to get along to Ashburton that weekend to show your support and watch what should be a great game of handball on the Saturday night.
On the governance front, it was great to get the changes to the NZHF constitution through at the SGM held in Wellington end of May. Thanks to all the Club reps for making it along. We now have a more robust framework to support New Zealand Handball kicking on to the next level, with a set of rules that will hopefully see us through the rest of the decade. Included in the changes is a specific role for the life members to play, a more robust disciplinary and complaints process, and formal recognition of Regional Associations in the organisation’s framework. We have reached out to the Regional Associations to let them know what it means for them – with successes over the past few months enabling us to launch a fund to support regional handball development initiatives. Exciting times.
Last, a special nod to our tireless Media Officer Jun and the fantastic work he has been doing getting livestream feeds of our handball games up and running. We are incredibly fortunate to have him volunteer his time and expertise so generously. What we ask of the handball community in return is that you all do your bit to help out – whether it is manning a camera, helping with the set up and pack down, or helping with replays and other logistics. Jun can’t always be there, and we desperately need some more volunteers to step up and get trained on what needs to be done.
Nga mihi
David Ireland
President, New Zealand Handball Federation