Most of the world simply identifies Handball as Handball, so why does the United States call the sport Team Handball?
Because another sport is also called Handball in the United States. This Handball uses a small rubber ball and is a 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 game that involves players slapping the ball with their hands off a wall. This “wall handball” is played throughout the United States and has a much higher name recognition than the Handball played in Europe and other parts of the world. Referring to Handball as simply Handball in the United States inevitably leads to confusion. To distinguish the sport from “Wall Handball” the name Team Handball was adopted. Wall Handball is also played in other parts of the world including Ireland and Canada. To differentiate the sports in those countries, Handball is often referred to as Olympic Handball in Ireland and in Anglophone Canada the sport is sometimes called European Team Handball (ETH). Wikipedia article on Wall Handball: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_handball Wikipedia disambiguation discussion on Handball: http://en.wikipedia.
