Queenstown Social Tournament Summary

Queenstown Social Tournament Summary

Queenstown Tournament 2023 kicked off this year's indoor calendar last weekend (1 - 2 April). A successful tournament with players from Auckland, Canterbury and Otago all participating. The annual social tournament had shorter games 25 minutes per half. On Saturday the first games were the most intense ones with only one point difference in both the men's and women's matches. The second ones were a test of fitness, which is always good and allowed the youth to really shine. The young lads had a lot of court time and built up their confidence and game as we encouraged them to take the lead on the plays and trust themselves. The women then mixed the teams and had a NZ vs other passports match which was neck and neck the whole way ending in epic last play goal to tie the match, 22-22 . The 18s men then played against a mixed men's team which was a tight match ending in 20-17 to the seniors. Sunday was all about fun, 4 teams mixed boys and girls all random were made up with 10 minutes fast paced games all the teams played each other. Everyone had a blast. Big thanks to all the volunteers, helpers, scorers and refs who keep the social tournament going.

Leo Gatti - Queenstown Handball

For details and scoresheets, go to Event Page

Support Our New Zealand Men's Youth Team

Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu

Maori Proverb - Adorn the bird with feathers so it will fly

The New Zealand Men’s youth handball team qualifying to represent Oceania at the IHF Men’s Youth World Championships in Croatia is a fantastic opportunity - not just for the players involved, but for the future of New Zealand handball. Chances to play against the best in the world don’t come around that often, and seeing our guys perform on the world stage will help inspire the next generation to get amongst it. It’s a massive investment for all involved, in both time and costs, so we really hope the country will get behind the boys in their fundraising efforts to help ease some of that burden - SUPPORT THE TEAM

NZHF Partners with SELECT New Zealand

The New Zealand Handball Federation is delighted to announce the appointment of SELECT New Zealand as the new preferred supplier for New Zealand indoor handball representative teams.

“The SELECT brand is a great fit for New Zealand Handball. SELECT put forward a really strong proposal, and we are looking forward to a mutually beneficial strategic partnership with Pushkar and the Freedom2Play team over the years ahead.””
— David Ireland, President, New Zealand Handball Federation

SELECT’s offer includes special deal for kitting out our national teams, a supply of SELECT handballs for each campaign kitted out by SELECT, credits and discounts for the New Zealand handball community when purchasing SELECT gear. A dedicated page for New Zealand Handball on SELECT's website for easy access to a range of customised kit - Freedom@Play-NZHF

“SELECT is more than balls – we not only have a selection of quality balls for all levels, but we also have a large selection of clothing, training equipment, bags, sports supports etc. SELECT are delighted that New Zealand Handball Federation have trusted our capabilities and selected us to offer quality products to New Zealand players and the wider handball community.”
— Pushkar Kulkarni, Director, SELECT New Zealand

player’s choice by SELECT

Connect with SELECT:

Website: Freedom2Play

Instagram: SelectSportNZ and Freedom2PlaySports

Facebook: Freedom2PlaySports

Twitter: @Freedom2play_NZ

EOI for Women's Youth and Junior National Teams

Attention all young and talented women handball players! Here's an exciting opportunity for you to showcase your skills and represent your country on a global stage. The International Handball Federation is hosting the IHF Trophy in late 2023, and we are looking for new and current youth and junior women handball players to join our team.

This is your chance to compete against the best in the world, learn from experienced coaches and players, and make lifelong memories. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, we welcome all skill levels to try out.

Don't miss this incredible opportunity to take your handball game to the next level and make your mark on the international stage. Sign up now for a chance to be a part of our team and represent your country with pride.

You will receive an email response to confirm your EOI has been submitted. As we are currently seeking interest there is not a confirmed location for where trials will be held, Coaches and Managers announced shortly.

Deadline to register - 30 April 2023

Players born 1st of Jan 2006 or younger - https://forms.gle/eZKkhHC1bxLEWNyo9

Players born 1st of Jan 2004 or younger - https://forms.gle/7aiV3n1pMKYPoFXb6

Any questions please email high-performance@handball.org.nz

Welcome to Porirua Handball

We would like to welcome the newest handball organisation in New Zealand - Porirua Handball. It is founded by Ben Potaka, a previous national player who represented New Zealand in both indoor and beach handball. As President of Porirua Handball, here is what he has to say.

Porirua Handball Incorporated is built to develop handball in the Porirua region. Handball has existed in Wellington for many years and there have been teams from Porirua in the past. Yet there has never been a handball organisation fully focused on Porirua. Due to the nature of things, Wellington Central garners the most attention from the handball community. Typically, it is the outskirts of the region that gets less attention and therefore less development, less competition.

By creating this new organisation, we hope to give Porirua the attention it deserves. To develop all levels of handball in Porirua. This includes school handball right through to adult club handball.

It is written into Porirua Handballs constitution that our focus is the development of handball at a grass roots level. We are looking to take the long-term approach, instead of focusing on short term success, instead of focusing on our high-performance players, we are intend to focus on constantly developing our player base and growing the sport as much as we can in our area. With the hopes that this will filter through to the higher levels, high performance, over the long term.

Handball is a small sport in this country therefore most regions rely heavily on others for competition. Although Porirua Handball intends to compete as much as we can across the country, we also intend to be self-sufficient. We wish to create competition within our area that does not rely on another. Our focus is on people playing handball and would welcome anyone who would want to join our competitions, given they are a positive influence on our community.

Although Porirua is a small city population wise, we endeavour to punch above our weight. As our focus is on developing our player base, we wish to become the biggest centre for handball in the country. We intend to do that by focusing on our community and making our environment a great one, where our most newest members feel the most welcome.

We are new and starting from scratch, we are unapologetically ambitious. We are hopeful that we will provide real value to the New Zealand Handball Community in the coming years.

All the best to Ben and Porirua Handball.

Ben Potaka representing New Zealand in Indoor and Beach Handball

President's Update for March 2023

Kia ora koutou, Aotearoa Handball Whānau!

March already, and time for a quick update as another summer of beach handball draws to a close and indoor training starts to crank up around the country.

First up it’s youth handball. Fantastic to see the latest initiative to grow our secondary school playing base throw off last month, with the successful launch of the Porirua Secondary Schools League. Exciting to see some fresh new talent experience the fun of handball. Big shout out to Porirua Handball and Ben Potaka for making that happen.

At the same time, our established programmes for supporting youth handball in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin continue, with some great mahi being put in by our wonderful volunteers around the country to nurture our emerging talent. We also continue to enjoy great support from our key strategic partner The Goethe Institut supplying kit for Das Kiwi Handball Projekt and other initiatives at the intermediate school level, with some exciting plans afoot in that space. If you have connections with a primary or intermediate school that you think would be interested in experiencing some fun handball to start the kids on a lifetime handball journey, please get in touch.

At the high performance end of our youth programme, our Men’s Under 19 Team’s preparations for the 2023 Men’s U19 World Champs are well underway. With the tournament scheduled to take place in Croatia in August it’s a massive commitment from all those involved, but they are up for the task and early signs are encouraging. With around $12k per player needed to get them there, a major fundraising campaign is under way – https://nzyouthhandball.raisely.com. If you have connections with any organisations that might be interested in sponsoring the team, please reach out to youth@handball.org.nz – we’d love to hear from you.

On the beach front, we have had another well-attended series in Christchurch over the New Zealand version of summer. Congrats to the Northern men and the Southern Women for taking out the best of three North-South clashes, and to the Parrots (Men) and Otago Toroa (Women) for taking out the Beach Club Champs. Eyes now turn to the international front, where the Men’s and Women’s Teams will have their jobs cut out for them as they compete at Coolangatta over ANZAC Weekend in the Oceania qualifiers for the World Beach Games and next year’s World Champs. Another fundraising campaign is underway to help with that, so once again keep an eye out for opportunities to support your national teams go out and do it for New Zealand.

Looking ahead to the indoor season, the major tournaments schedule for the year is now all locked and loaded, and first up it’s everyone’s favourite, the Queenstown Social Tournament on 1-2 April. See 2023 National Tournaments for the schedule. As a nearly heads up, National Club Champs will be held at Wellington’s fabulous renamed Ākau Tangi Sports Centre on 8-10 September – as with last year, it’s a full three day event. We are scheduled to throw off from 9am on the opening Friday of the tournament, with finals likely to be mid-late afternoon on the 10th. This year we have booked for games to take place on the Friday evening so we can allow teams a bit more rest time between games. If you are planning on travelling to Wellington from out of town, please factor in that timing. And we have already had interest in attending expressed from an Australian Club, so looking forward to some international competition on our home turf – it’s been a while!

Last for this update, the NZHF Exec is working through the outputs from last December’s strategy session – thanks again to all those Club and Regional Association reps who took part in that. It’s clear we have some challenges ahead, but encouraging to have depth in our volunteer base across the country to take on those challenges.  Our plan is to share the key updates to NZHF’s strategy next month, along with confirmation of the subs and affiliation fees for the current year. I’m sure you are all hanging out for that.

Yours in handball

David Ireland

President, New Zealand Handball Federation

National Beach Handball Day Two and Finals Summary

Day Two in the books for the National Beach Handball Championship for 2023 and we saw the best of New Zealand’s Stock of Beach Handballers play outstandingly in adverse conditions. The rain really came down but this didn’t take away from the quality beach Handball. Due to the adverse weather and seeing as the draw worked out as such, the last round of found robin matches for both the Men’s and Women’s would determine placing in the tournament.

The Third vs. Fourth Playoff in the Men’s was a very closely fought affair, between the Masters of Spinjitsu and The Pekapeka Men with the Pekapeka Men coming out on top.

The next game played on the day was the women’s final’s between the Pekapeka Women and the Otago Toroa in a Defensively dominated affair that the Toroa fighting through the weather and getting revenge from the first round of games and winning the final in two sets. The Toroa Goalkeeper, Kristina Hames, was named both Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Goalkeeper in a dominant display over the two day tournament. Kira Marpert from the Toroa also was dominant as the Top Goal Scorer with no other player within 10 of her tally.

Kristina Hames, Most Valuable Womens Goalkeeper and Player

Kira Marpert, Women’s Top Scorer

The next games played were the Final North vs. South Games and The North Men and South Women completed clean sweeps in the series in very closely fought matches.

The Final Match of the day was the Barad-dûr Beach Bros matching off against last years Champions, the Parrots Men. The Final was an extremely close affair with only a goal separating the sides throughout the whole match. Inevitably the Match went to penalties and the experience of the Parrots took the side to victory. Thomas Roxburgh of the Parrots showed this experience and the ability to make big time plays in big time moments taking the Most Valuable Goalkeeper. Paul Ireland from the Barad-dûr Beach Bros took out both Most Valuable Player and used his last penalty to take the Top Goal Scorer from Max Brookes of the Parrots by 1 goal.

Thomas Roxburgh, Most Valuable Men’s Goalkeeper

Paul Ireland, Men’s Top Scorer and Most Valuable Player

That concludes the 2023 National Beach Handball Nation Championships, Thanks to all the people who travelled, who helped with setup, packdown, benched and refereed. And a HUGE shout out to Jun Tanlayco and Aaron Bell to ensure that the games were livestreamed and photographed, keeping a record of Beach Handball in New Zealand.

All Match Results, Statistics and the schedule are on our Events page.

National Beach Championship - Day One Summary

Parrots vs Masters of Spinjitsu

Day one in the books for the National Beach Handball Championship for 2023 and what a cracker of a day it was. The weather held out (not looking good for tomorrow though… ) and the handball was top notch! With almost 80 players out on the sand over 13 games we saw some top notch handball on the sand. And to top it all off the National Youth Squad kept all the troops fed with an excellent sausage sizzle.

The Women’s competition is hotly contested with 3 of the 4 games going to penalties. After the first round of games there was a 3 way time at the top with only periods won to differentiate between the teams. The Pekapeka have put themselves in a good position to make the final with a win to start off the second round of games but considering the first day anything can happen with all teams showing that they are capable of beating anyone on their day.

The Men’s competition has been a clean cut competition not one game going to Penalties. Parrots sit in the box seat with 3 wins from 3, showing their grit and experience by winning tight halves against both the Pekapeka Men and Masters of Spinjitsu and keep games from going to penalties. The Barad-dûr Beach Bros were the only team to have two games today but looked strong in both. They have the most ability to swing positions with 2 pool games left on day two so their destiny is in their hands with Pekapeka Men and Masters of Spinjitsu on their heels with one win apiece from 3 matches.

All Match Results, Statistics and the schedule are on our Events page.

National Beach Championship kicks of with Social Mixed Beach Handball Games

What a great start to the National Beach Handball Championship for 2023, with nearly thirty players out on the sand we kicked off the Championship with a double elimination Mixed Tournament. There were some excellent skills on display from both our old hands and some great new talent. The first round of games ended with clear victors but then every game following this ended in penalties. The Toru team after getting beaten in the first game fought through the loser’s bracket and won 3 penalty shootouts in a row to take home the Crown.

For more details of the National Beach Championships go to Events pages