French Handball in Miami? Oui!

Baseball isn't the only sporting event to check out this weekend

Love French people and economical sports?

You’re in luck – Friday and Saturday the Coupe de la Ligue handball championships will be played in the good old U S of A. More specifically, the American Airlines Arena.

A.C. Tellison, a former University of Miami wide receiver, got into handball – basically soccer with your hands -- via a business partner who had played for the Romanian Olympic handball team (it’s been an official Olympic sport since 1936).

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“The first time I saw it played, I thought, 'Why am I 35 years old and have never seen this before?' '' Tellison told the Miami Herald. ``I wondered where this game had been all my life.''

So, through his marketing firm New World Sports, which aims to expose American kids to the awesomeness that is handball, Tellison made a deal to bring Coupe de la Ligue to Miami, which the French didn’t think was so magnifique. And Americans, well, they just didn’t get it.

“Americans hear `handball' and they think about the game you play in New York; slapping a rubber ball against the wall,'' Tellison said. He hopes the games this weekend will help to change that.

Their goal, he continued, is to fill the arena with kids, and schools, he claimed, were even thinking about adding the game to their curriculum.

To which we say: vive le dodgeball!




 

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