News and Info from MSHA

It has been a long time since the last newsletter and we apologize for the long delay. It seems in these times of the internet and instant information, the written word has take a sight back-seat. While our usual news and results information is regularly updated on the MSHA website, other news and changes are a little less available. So what has happened in the last nine months besides lots of handball?

Announced in this newsletter is the Moy Langhorst Scholarship (see page 16.) You may have heard mention of this and now you have some of the details.

Youπll see from the extensive results section in this newsletter, there have been many tournaments. The Al Warren tournament was a no-show this year do to lack of participation in recent years. We are sorry to see this long-standing tournament lose favor with the handball community. Hopefully some of you will let your thoughts be known to those at the Midway YMCA and the tourney will reappear next year. We also mourn the loss of the Pine City three-wall court which is now in a landfill somewhere. We will not forget the memorable tournaments in the middle of the hottest part of the summer. The Mankato Handball Experience moved to the fall this year to avoid conflicts with other traditional tournaments so there are now two winners in 2005 as the previous tournament was in January.

As a means to help all better plan their local tournaments, the MSHA Board decided to attempt to hold state tournaments on the last non-holiday weekend in the months of February, March and April, depending on court availability. We were not quite able to achieve that for 2006, but it is our future plan. Everyone felt we had too many tournaments in a row last winter.

This past year, we decided to take advantage of the USHAπs offer of $10 membership renewals for new or previously un-renewed members. We purchased one year introductory memberships for 38 MSHA members that participated in the MSHA tournaments but were not members of the USHA and paid a surcharge. We hope this results in more participation and long term results for both the USHA and MSHA.

We have also put in a bid to host the 2007 USHA Nationals at the U of M Rec Center. We await the USHA Boardπs decision. Stay tuned - we have an exciting future.

As always, if you have concerns or comments, please contact any MSHA board member.