From 12th till 13th of March the NZ Handball Championship took place in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. This two day tournament should determine who will be the best Handball Team in NZ.
We had strong ambitions for this tournament since we have won the North Island Championship a couple of months ago.
Besides, if you travel 650 km for a freaking tournament, winning is the least you want to do!
So after a long car ride of more than 9 hours on Friday we have been well prepared for the tournament in Wellington and everything went just perfect for us although we had a rugged start, since the first few matches deserved some adjustments.
Anyway, to make the long story short: We stood against 5 different teams and won each single game in the preliminary round as in the playoffs, so Auckland Region Handball is officially New Zealand Handball Champion 2011. 🙂
Our ladies team, that also won the North Island championship was a not as lucky as we were this time and just placed third, which is still an impressive result of course. So congrats to you, ladies 🙂
Although Handball is still a fairly small sport in New Zealand it is great to see that it is evolving quite quickly however and attracts more and more people with every new tournament. It should be said, that the chances for this sports are huge down here in NZ and we do our best to make it more popular till it becomes acknowledged as other popular sports.
I guess the situation of Handball in Auckland is one of the best examples. When I look back at the situation half a year ago, we were hardly ably to form two complete teams for a little match. Today we are facing not less then 4 teams in a little city league. That’s an impressive improvement and hopefully the ignition for greater evolution.
But so long, let’s have a look at the best NZ handball team 🙂
From left to right: Milosh, Vaughan, Antoine, Me, Pedja, Tobias, Andreas, Justin, Herve (Coach).
In the middle: Ilkin, Gaston, Isabell (on the very right).
Ladies: Franziska, Ida, Maria, Line, Pia, Constance, Marion
and in the front very exposed: Lara and Wiebke. 🙂
Servus Karle,
spielen die den in NZ wirklich so schlecht Handball, dass so gescheiterte Handballtalente wie du wieder anfangen müssen zu spielen?
Des nennt mer zweiten Frühling Schnaxel :p