Click to see movie (2:23 mins., 7.5 Mb, 50k/sec) Sostre leaps to play errant bounce in the USHA one-wall finals. This movie requires QuickTime.

Dennis Hopper and John Malkovich's film Knockaround Guys includes a handball scene filmed on the Coney Island courts (used for One-Wall National Championships). See Streetplay's coverage of the filmmakers on location.

Handball on TV

Streetplay was pleased to present a great historical handball match, the first TV broadcast of a game. Sadly, the source of the video (described below for posterity) has faded into the cyber-ether... so let us know if you see any other handball video around the web that its creator might let us rebroadcast here.

Produced by television broadcaster/producer Ben Thum (Ben is also a long time handball player), it is an edited film of the John Bike-David Chapman Showdown match from 1993. Ben considers this one of handball's classic matches, noting, "When it was taped in '93, Chapman was a 17 year old phenomenon and Bike was king of the handball world--a truly magnificent athletic warrior with all the tools you could ask for. While Chapman had already won all five national junior four-wall titles, few thought the skinny young kid from Long Beach, CA could get the better of the most dominating handball player since the great Naty Alvarado.

"The match went to a tie-breaker. A 10-10 tiebreaker. We could not have planned it better. Six camera angles, good commentary from actor Ed O'Neill and masters champion Rick Christian, a nail-biting ending, and the easiest to watch video handball match ever."

Ben recently released a video called Alley Cracker which gives the history of the game. Alley Cracker is available for purchase on the USHA site.

Handball Video on Streetplay

We expect to have a number of handball video clips available over the next few months. Please contact us if you have a clip you want to include.

If you are interested in selling handball videos, please list your information in the equipment and video discussion area.