Handball struggles to take root in North America

“It’s just not big in North America,” Devlin said. “It’s too bad, because it has pretty much everything North Americans want. It’s fast, it’s physical, it’s high scoring.”

And even with 51 athletic events on the Pan Am docket, no single event invites as many comparisons to others. It is near impossible — for an uncultured North American, at least — to detach handball’s rhythm and strategy from similar games: soccer, basketball, lacrosse, even hockey.

In other words, sports that are slightly more recognizable.

“There’s no culture for it. There’s no background for it (in Canada),” said Canadian women’s co-captain Kimberley Ewanovich, a former youth soccer keeper whose coach convinced her to try handball at age 16. Now 29, she plays professionally in Norway.

“Here, you’re born with a hockey stick,” she said. “There, you’re born with a handball or a soccer ball.”

Every Canadian men’s national player has been paid to play in Europe at one time or another, according to Devlin, who suited up in the French second division in 2009-10. But most are not currently playing full-time. Instead, they rely heavily on provincial team training to stay sharp, convening a few times each year for camps with the national team.

It is a venture funded entirely by the players, Devlin said. It is also part of the chasm between Canada and top European teams — and Brazil, the men’s opponent Friday in their first Pan Am match.

“They’re a level above everybody else,” Devlin said this week, before his team lost 3417. Brazil entered the Games ranked 26th in the world, 22 slots above Canada.

“(It’s like) if you took a Brazilian hockey team and tried to pit them against a Canadian hockey team, or something like that — you can stay with them for a while, but it’s usually the depth, experience, the size, the training and the money that they put in their programs,” Devlin added. “It’s hard for other countries to keep up.”

Canada had home court on Friday, and even if it did not prove advantageous, it was a nice novelty: the men’s team has never appeared in a major international event at home, Devlin said, aside from one-off qualification matches with the United States for a spot in the Pan Ams.

The men’s goal in Toronto is to medal, coming off seventh- and fifth-place finishes at the last two Games. Ewanovich’s co-captain, Kim Barette St-Martin, said the women are eyeing a berth in the semifinals. After losing 25-22 to Mexico in preliminary action Thursday, they will be in tough, having also been grouped with Brazil.

Another objective — to see handball aired live to the country — will not be realized, even though some Canadian fans (and a few players) took to Twitter this week to push for increased coverage on CBC, the Games’ Canadian broadcaster.

“Hand Ball is not one of the sports being provided to CBC/Radio-Canada by the Organizing Committee so we won’t have live coverage online or on TV, however we will have highlights of any medal moments,” CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson told the National Post via email on Thursday.

Chief Pan Am spokesperson Teddy Katz, meanwhile, said over email that “TO2015 worked with host broadcaster and rights holders in the different countries to determine the sports that maximize broadcast coverage across the globe.”

The tournament, then, will likely be played to a few hundred fans at a time at Toronto’s Exhibition Centre. That was the case in the men’s opener Friday, where several spectators wore Canadian gear and brandished flags.

“Anybody that’s ever seen the sport played here, they want to know how they can do it, what it is,” Ewanovich said.

“It’s really sad that we don’t get the media coverage and the promotional aspect that we need to really get this sport off the ground in Canada.”