UL Handball Club keeps virtually active

Amid the global pandemic, all at UL Handball Club have remained vigilant and open in finding some ‘off court’ alternate activities to keep our members occupied.

While it would have been easy to leave everyone to their own devices, the club has worked hard to provide light entertainment and virtual meetings for all their members throughout the last semester and will endeavour to do the same this semester.

The start of semester one saw UL Handball Club gain ten new members who the club is delighted to welcome and are looking forward to meeting in person, hopefully sooner rather than later.

UL Handball Club held a raffle of some highly sought after ICHA gear from previous years, a raffle that saw the club's social media pages grow and reach a larger audience all while enticing new members to join.

Later in the semester the club ran a Games Night, consisting of general knowledge, dingbats, a guess the theme song round and a handballer round. One of our their first year members took first place on the night. It was great to see the new members taking part and meeting the rest of the crew despite the current situation.

Perhaps the highlight of our semester was the talk the club hosted, open to all ICHA members, with Ciana Ní Churraoin, Sports Psychologist, a past UL student and handball club member.

The talk titled, ‘The Space in Between’ focused on the main areas of how we can utilise this time at home to work on our mindset and maintain our goals.

Anyone who attended would agree we gained valuable insight into how mind over matter is often key to unlocking our unique skills both on and off the court.

This time last year club members were in the middle of training for the US Handball Collegiate Championships, hosted by University of Texas at Austin.

For many of our members it was a trip they will all remember. Thinking about it brings back some nostalgia knowing it will be 2022 before members play Stateside again. The two weeks were loaded with playing games, exploring the city and shopping. For new members and current members still to attend, put it in your diaries for next year!

At home on Irish soil, the club has many tournaments throughout the college year that result in great weekends away. The start of the year would see us preparing for the 60x30 Tournament, usually held in Wexford.

As the club have no four-wall courts on campus the handballers drive to Bohermore for practice. The weekend in Wexford supplies a great start to the semester, meeting up with the other colleges after the summer break.

The 40x20 Doubles Championship in Galway and the Singles in Belfast are two standout weekends on the College Handball calendar.

Members spend the weeks leading up to these in an alley in Newport, which we are extremely lucky to have access to, training and enjoying with lead up to both tournaments.

This semester we have decided to combat the effects that the pandemic can have on our wellbeing and are running a fundraiser, in conjunction with NUIG Handball Club, for the National Centre for Youth Mental Health, JIGSAW.

The fundraiser ‘5 for JIGSAW’, will see both clubs complete 5 challenges over 5 days in the hopes of raising much needed funds for this charity and working together as a team to complete the challenges.

Beginning on Monday next, February 15, UL Handball Club is asking as many people as possible to get involved and donate to this worthy cause.

All details on how to get involved and donate will be available on our social media pages, @Ulwolveshandball on Instagram and UL Wolves Handball Club on Facebook so keep an eye out there.

All at UL Handball Club hope everyone has a good semester and look forward to seeing you all and getting back on the courts soon!