A Case of Mistaken Identity

Vs.

Mystery solved.  The Olympic
sport we chanced across
the other day and couldn’t identify was none other than the ever-popular
HANDBALL!! Obviously, the reason we had never seen it before is that
when, in the past, we heard about handball, we thought of the American
sport of the same name, which we always associate with New York City
but which we understand is also popular in California as well as other
urbs
across the country. Handball brings to our mind sweaty swarthy
hard-edged city-dwellers whose hands are constantly calloused and wrapped
in fraying
once-white athletic tape. It was played on cramped courts carved from
the urban landscape; cement, brick, occasionally wood, a poorer relative
to swanky squash.

But NO, the Olympic variety is a horse of a different
color. Played by teams of 7, it is a crazy combination of basketball,
Fulbito and water polo without the water.  Bob Ryan, in today’s
Boston
Globe, set us straight and explains the basic rules better than
we can. This is undoubtably because he, a true professional, sat through an entire match, which
apparently last 90 minutes.

The object is to throw a ball about the size of a large
grapefruit with the texture of a volleyball into a goal that is 2 meters
high and 3 meters wide. Each team has a goalkeeper and six other players.
The goalie, as is the case in other sports, has to be borderline crazy
because he has zero protection and must try to stop shots that are thrown
very hard from very close. The court is 40 meters by 20 meters, and there
is a semicircular line with a diameter of 15 meters that forms a goal
area. Only the goalie can be inside that area.

Ryan predicts an American medal in 2 or 3 Olympic cycles
(we didn’t qualify this time), as soon as we get enough "renegade" basketball
and hockey players to sign on, in hopes of Olympic fame and fortune.  Good
luck.

from the Boston Globe