The Jetpacker

Handball just might be the coolest sport you’ve never heard of.

I’m not talking about the handball I use to dominate on elementary school playgrounds with my incendiary slicies.

I’m not talking about the handball that old men with arthritis play at the gym because they can’t grip a racket anymore.

I’m talking about team handball, an action-packed, high-scoring sport that’s like soccer for the hands.

It’s a sport so popular in Europe that there are professional leagues for both men and women.  If you don’t have a subscription to Obscure Sports Quarterly, the only way to discover handball in America was by watching late-night Summer Olympics broadcasts.

Handball isn’t esoteric and bewildering like cricket; it’s a relatively simple game where two teams of 7 players score goals by throwing a ball into a net guarded by a goalie.  The team that scores the most goals in 60 minutes wins.

The catch is: there’s a 20-foot crease around the goal that players can’t enter.  Offensive wizards circumvent this obstacle by darting through defenders, leaping into the air like a frog and firing a shot before his feet touch the ground.

It makes for some pretty acrobatic — and rough — entertainment.  Fouls are unlimited in handball, and often times a defender will slam a player to the ground before he ever gets a shot off.

When we visited Berlin, we were finally able to see a professional handball match live.

There weren’t many seats left for the Berlin Foxes game by the time we arrived at Max Schmeling Hall, so we were relegated to the top of the corner.

The game was fast and furious.  Drummers set the rhythm of the game with their hypnotic high tempo cadence.  The crowd erupted and chanted every time a player from the home team whipped a ball into the net.

And fans smacked noisemakers against the railings to the beat of a popular German song called “Das Geht Ab” — a song that was played no less than 30 times throughout the game.  We were convinced they were saying “Das Get Up” until I just looked it up.  Listen to this song and tell me it’s not a catchy sports anthem…

When the final buzzer echoed through the packed arena, the Berlin Foxes had defeated VfL Gummersbach 30-24.

The experience was similar to that of the hockey game we attended in Prague.  You just don’t find this kind of interactivity at sporting events in America.  You also don’t find this kind of respect for the opponent.

Fans of the home team actually applauded the visiting team as the announcer introduced each player.  In America, we would boo ‘em.

It’s not just handball that we want America discover.  It’s the overall experience and the sportsmanship.