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Central Alberta growing into Handball hub

You can be forgiven in Canada if handball isn’t on a list of conventional sporting pursuits.
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A group of Alberta athletes traveled to Serbia earlier this month to play against some international competition. (Contributed photo)

You can be forgiven in Canada if handball isn’t on a list of conventional sporting pursuits.

Most remember it from the occasional gym class session where there was very little commitment and even less teaching.

Internationally, and particularly in Europe the sport has long been in the everyday lexicon and here in Canada, it’s slowly beginning to catch fire.

Over the last 10 years, Alberta has been at the forefront of that growth. In the last number of years, Central Alberta is beginning to develop into one of the strong points of that growth.

Recently, the Alberta Handball Federation (AHF) took a group of 80 athletes between the ages of 12-19 to Serbia for an international competition.

Up until last year, the AHF development team usually featured a player or two from Central Alberta. Of the group that went to Serbia for the nine-day visit in August, 25 local athletes made the trip. This fall, many of those same athletes will travel to Japan to play and compete.

“The developmental program is really neat because you have athletes in February asking what is handball, to competing against teams in another country, in five months. And competing at a fairly good level as well,” said Darcy McQuillan, a teacher at St. Joseph High School and the Alberta Team Handball Federation U18 Girls Provincial coach.

“These players come back and they are miles ahead of the other high school players. We spend a lot of time on technique and basically the skills of the game. How the game is played. You put them in an environment where there is a lot of highly motivated players, they really end up being a provincial all-star team. Even though they’ve gotten a late start, they are playing against Serbian kids that have played since kindergarten or grade 1. They tend to pick it up quickly.”

Local athletes who made the trip included Q’ielon Bell (Innisfail), Connor MacDougall (Red Deer), Rhys Groenewegen (Red Deer), Reid Christiansen (Bentley), Levi Milot (Bentley), Hunter Smith (Red Deer), Andrew Lushm (Bentley), Chace Levis (Bentley), Kinnkade Streit (Red Deer), Ryan Ribeiro (Red Deer), Kade Hirney (Red Deer), Kesaly Von Kuster (Bentley), Ella Damberger (Red Deer), Elyse Borys (Red Deer), Melissa Groenen (Red Deer), Katelynn Hatto (Red Deer), Catriona Borys (Red Deer), Selena Delahunty (Red Deer), Jada Milot (Red Deer), Robyn Ahn (Red Deer), Joey Tuazon (Red Deer), Delaney Warkentin (Camrose), Holly Daniel (Red Deer), Keanna Richards (Red Deer) and Anika Tough (Red Deer).

Those games in Serbia were further proof that the sport still has a long way to go here. Alberta is getting more competitive, but the European players are born with the sport.

“The kids learn a lot and they play hard. We keep them as motivated as much as possible,” McQuillan said.

“It’s all about effort and attitude and never giving up. The last few games we had they put in a really good effort, the results are probably not always what you want on the scoreboard. It’s the results from the kids and their athletic ability that you’re looking for.”

From the development program, players move onto the elite level, then ideally onto junior and senior national teams that play all across the world.

McQuillan explained that with the quality coaching that’s available in the province and particularly at the high school level in Central Alberta, progress is being made. Add in word spreading through high school programs in the area, the sport is starting to catch on and they are slowly catching up to other places.

It also helps that the newly built St. Joseph High School has one of the only full-length handball courts in Central Alberta.

“In the past five years, we’ve had a lot more kids move into the development program and the elite program as well,” he said.

“It’s getting to a point as we start getting more kids in the area here, we start getting so many coming back and talking about it. Then we get a whole lot more looking to get into it the next year. That develops into better high school teams as well.”



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Byron Hackett

About the Author: Byron Hackett

Byron has been the sports reporter at the advocate since December of 2016. He likes to spend his time in cold hockey arenas accompanied by luke warm, watered down coffee.
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