DetroitYES sponsor of Belle Isle Handball Tournament

[Lowell]

Come on by, Saturday morning and afternoon, at beautiful Belle Isle's Handball Courts. Plenty of time for the Dally afterwards.
- Tournament Details Link -

Long time forumers are acquainted with my passion for the game of handball, or "The Perfect Game" as we handball players call it.This year my company is a sponsor of our annual Summer's End A-B doubles tournament.

Detroit handball history stretches back to the 19th Century and has been played on Belle Isle for decades. The original courts were two wooden courts that were just east of the Belle Isle bathhouse. Those were replaced with the current courts built in 1979.

Handball players are doing their part for Detroit too. Michigan Handball activities are led by the Michigan Handball Association www.mhandball.org. In the past three years the MHA arranged to have the Belle Isle courts painted and re-roofed at a cost of over $15000 to the organization.

In warm seasons the "3-wall" game is played outdoors. The top local players play at the 6 courts on Belle Isle and the 4 courts in St. Clair Shores. It is a physically and mentally demanding game. A fun-filled, sweat-soaked aerobic exercise always results.


Yep. That's yours truly on the left, using his left, vs. good friend Arnold.

Ready to learn? Show up at Belle Isle after 4 on M-W-F from April through October.

HANDBALL 101

A little about the game. Handball is an ancient Celtic game brought to American by the Irish. Some records show it dating back to the ancient Egyptians. Throughout the Celtic world it had variations, such as Jai Alai played by the Celtic Basque using a wicker sling. Racquetball, which began in the 60's, is simply handball played with a sawed-off tennis racquet.

The essentials of the game are simple. The 2" diameter hard rubber ball is hit, using only the hand, against a front wall and the opposing player has to hit it back against the wall before it bounces twice. The game is to 21. One can only score after winning the serve, as in volleyball.

After that it gets increasingly complex. To begin with, one needs to learn to use one's off hand as you can be sure the other player will try to avoid hitting the ball to your dominant hand. Hence the learning curve is long, arduous and, initially, humbling. The best athlete in the world will lose his first 50 games, probably more, to even an old guy like me. Guaranteed. It takes 10-20 years for skills to peak, so you are always getting better.

In the 3-wall game, such as is played at Belle Isle, the 3 walls are a front wall and two side walls. [Technically, as the ceiling is in play, it is also wall]. Other than on the serve, the ball may strike as many of those surfaces as possible in any order and will remain in play, as long as it hits the front wall somewhere along the line -- and doesn't bounce twice. On the serve it must hit the front wall first. In 3-wall there is no back wall, unlike indoor '4-wall' game. Instead there is a back line. If the ball hits the front wall and flies over the back line on the fly the opposing player wins a point or gains the serve, if on defense.

[cman710]

Sounds like fun. If I were not hundreds of miles away, I'd check it out. Good luck!

[Whitehouse]

It's related to the main sport in my home province called Kaatsen, or in English it's called frisian handball The PC tournament is the oldest regulated sports event in the world!

[Lowell]

Interesting Whitehouse. The Celts were driven to the fringes of Europe by the Romans to Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Normandy, Brittany and Basque Spain and France. It makes me wonder if their refuge included the swamps of Friesland. Wikipedia history has not mention but it does note that "These wars [Frankish conquest in 8th C] benefited attempts by Anglo-Irish missionaries [[which had began with Saint Boniface) to convert the Frisian populace to Christianity. So maybe the missionaries brought the game there.

I found a couple of interesting side notes while looking this up, "As both the Anglo-Saxons of England and the early Frisians were formed from largely identical tribal confederacies, their respective languages were very similar. Old Frisian is the most closely related language to Old English and the modern Frisian dialects are in turn the closest related languages to contemporary English.

Also Peter Stuyvesant of New York fka New Amsterdam fame was a Frisan. Also claimed are Mata Hari and Jane Fonda as a descendant.

As for our tournament the weekend, mother nature was in a different [or indifferent] mood. Rains made the courts unplayable so the tournament regrettably had to move indoors and 4-wall.