Sixth annual Minnesota Fall Classic handball tournament returns to Kennedy

Team Minnesota Handball will bring handball teams from across the country to the Kennedy Activity Center for its sixth annual Minnesota Fall Classic Oct. 9-11.

Handball is an Olympic sport that combines elements of several sports into one. As the name implies, hands are an integral part of the game as players try to throw a smaller version of a soccer ball into a net that is smaller than a soccer goal, but larger than a hockey goal. The game is played on a court similar in size to a basketball court.

Team Minnesota traces its roots back to 2008 as the Beijing Olympics were going on.

“Handball was on the TVs at the Life Time in Plymouth, and I was hypnotized by it,” said Josh Hetterick, founder and president of Team Minnesota Handball. “I remember something like it from gym class in high school. I was working at a rec center in Burnsville at the time and was talking with colleagues about it and how we could maybe make an Olympic team. It’s not easy to become an Olympian, but we reached out to USA Handball and started the club back in 2008.”

Hetterick loved playing basketball, but less so the 1-on-1 version of the game.

“I like the team aspect of a pickup basketball game at the YMCA, and in handball, you have to pass the ball and do so with speed to be the best team,” Hetterick said, noting his football background mixed with rugby experience. “You’re not going to win with just a hot-shot left back. While it is a very physical game, it’s not a run-through-people style. You can be aggressive on defense and physical. You can touch and hit people — not like a foul in basketball — but you might want to foul someone to disrupt their flow, and I love the strategic value in it. The high scoring really attracted me to it, where you’ll see 20 to 25 goals by each side.”

The club started with eight men and has grown to include about 40 players across multiple men's and women's teams.

Before the pandemic, the club used court space at the YWCA in Minneapolis, which featured the metro area's only dedicated handball lines. Once that facility was refurbished, the lines were omitted from the floor layout, leaving the club searching for a new home. They relocated to the Jefferson Activity Center, using blue painter’s tape to mark proper court dimensions. The pandemic shutdown closed that space for a time, and when facilities reopened, the Kennedy Activity Center in Bloomington proved to be a better fit.

The club uses the facility for weekly practices, with the USA Handball-sanctioned Fall Classic serving as the unofficial start of the indoor season.

“It’s easy to find teams because it is the start of the season, and it’s a really nice time to come here,” Hetterick said.

Minnesota travels to Chicago around Halloween before defending its title in December at the Samala Cup in Denver. San Francisco hosts a tournament in late January and early February, followed by a Milwaukee tournament in April. The national tournament typically takes place in the spring between April and May.

The tournament began with six teams traveling from across the country, and Team Minnesota added a women’s team, the Minnesota Monarchs, in January 2025. Team Minnesota now fields six men's teams alongside four women's teams.

Matches last 60 minutes with a short halftime break. The tournament opens play Friday evening, continues all day Saturday, and concludes Sunday.

Six years in, tournament brackets fill quickly, with many teams returning annually. This year, defending men’s champion Army West Point Black, which defeated Minnesota by three goals in last year's title game, is unable to return.

According to power rankings published on GoHandball.com, Minnesota was ranked fifth nationally as of Dec. 18, 2025.

Rankings analysts noted the team won seven of 11 games to start the 2025-26 season. Sam Erickson serves as the primary scorer for Minnesota, finishing fifth in scoring at the Michael Lipov Memorial Cup, which served as the opening event of the inaugural USA Team Handball National Cup series. Minnesota won its first-ever USA Team Handball Samala Super Cup division title in Denver, where Erickson delivered an MVP-caliber performance in a championship win over San Diego.

Minnesota suffered losses to the New York Athletic Club’s second team and Dallas at the Lipov event.