By Ciara Jordan
Friday the 1st of February marks the beginning of the ICHA’s anchor event: the 40x20 singles tournament weekend. For a great number of years, Kingscourt handball club and other surrounding venues have generously placed their fantastic facilities at the ICHA’s disposal. However, having received the news this year that the Dún A Rí hotel in Kingscourt would be unable to accommodate ICHA students due to pre-existing contractual commitments, the ICHA has made the difficult decision to move the Intervarsities to Belfast for 2019. The ICHA committee and players would like to express our earnest appreciation to Kingscourt, Corduff, Carrickmacross, St. Pat’s, Bawn, and Munterconnaught handball clubs for their kind hospitality and partnership throughout the last fifteen years and we look forward to returning to them in 2020!
With a new venue for a tournament comes new excitement, and the ICHA is lucky to have secured wonderful facilities for the upcoming weekend. We would like to express our extreme gratitude to this year’s host courts, St. Paul’s GAA Club, Gort na Mona GAA Club, O’Donovan Rossa GAA Club, Coláiste Feirste and Queen’s University Belfast for making their facilities available to us at such short notice. Our third major weekend of the 2018/2019 academic year promises to offer an outstanding array of collegiate handball with a vast number of Ireland’s top young handball stars set to take centre stage in hope of achieving the top prize of both our Male and Female Open Titles.
This year’s open competition promises to be one of epic encounters with both Colin Crehan (formally of UL, and now pursuing a masters in UCC) and Fiona Tully (DCU) in search of retaining their respective Men’s and Women’s Open titles. However, this will not be an easy endeavour for these two exceptional handballers. The Men’s Open is once again a close-set competition with tough competitors such as David Walsh (CIT), Kilkenny native Shane Dunne (ITT), the UCD pairing of Galen Riordan and Brian Mahon and DCU’s Niall Joyce in the fray. We’re also really excited that Max Langmack will travel all the way from Missouri State University in the USA to contest this year’s event. Max put in some eye-catching performances at the 2018 World Handball Championships, and will definitely pose a huge threat this weekend. The stage is set for a weekend of incomparable handball, undoubtedly with a few shocking twists and turns along the way!
UCC’s Colin Crehan will have a tough job keeping a hold of the trophy again this year!
We have been overwhelmed with the standard of female entrants over the last number of years, with the level of women’s handball indisputably on the rise. This year’s Women’s Open division is a clear indicator of the progress of women’s handball, with a large proportion of Ireland’s top young female handballers taking to the court. Fiona Tully (DCU) will be hoping to retain the top spot at this year’s event. Having put in some strong performances at the recent She’s Ace event, she has demonstrated that she remains the player to beat. However, Tully cannot get too comfortable, with TCD veteran Ciara Mahon hot on her heels to snatch the title away from her. Mahon lost out narrowly to Tully in last year’s decider, and the Kilkenny native will be keen to finally get her hands on the ICHA 40X20 title. UCC fresher Caitríona Millane is also hoping to build on her success at juvenile level to cause an upset in her first year of intervarsity handball.
Can Fiona Tully be stopped from retaining the title she won in her first year of intervarsity handball?
Doireann Murphy and Ella Donnellan are leading the charge from UL this year, while UCD’s Clodagh Nash, who has been demonstrating impressive form lately, hopes to mount a challenge from the south side of the capital. Kyra Vidas will also add some fresh excitement to the tournament, having travelled from Lake Forest College in Chicago to get a taste of Irish intervarsity action. With open games being live streamed with the ICHA’s new HD equipment, the handball community will have the chance to appreciate some of the fantastic games we have to look forward to!
As ever, the ICHA is delighted to cater for players of all abilities, with its famous grading system paving the way for tight, competitive games among players of similar standards. College is a fantastic time to try a new sport, and we’re really looking forward to welcoming a new bunch of beginners to experience this wonderful game!
ICHA tournaments cater for all levels, from seasoned veterans to complete beginners.
This coming weekend promises to offer an extremely impressive spectacle of handball at collegiate level from the Open straight down through each division. Fixtures for the tournament will be released on Thursday, and updates will be provided on our Facebook page (“Irish Collegiate Handball Association – ICHA”). At this point we would also like to also thank PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for kindly providing a range of portable phone chargers, USB Chargers and selfie sticks for the students attending the tournament. We’re sure that our new partnership with PwC will help collegiate handball grow in prominence in the years to come!
We look forward to welcoming our players to Belfast this weekend for what promises to be a great weekend of handball. Be sure to like our Facebook page to keep up to date with how the tournament progresses!