Caen Handball

The Palais des Sports Caen La Mer holds a little over 3,700 people for handball.

Caen Handball took its current name in 1993, after the handball section of ASPTT Caen was relegated to National 3 — itself the product of earlier mergers, with OMJ Caen joining ASPTT in 1969 and Caen EC following in 1972. The road back up took decades rather than seasons: a National 1 title in 2016 brought promotion to the Proligue, only for the club to drop back down after finishing 14th in 2019. Under coach Roch Bedos, Caen won National 1 again in 2022, this time in a season cut short by the pandemic, and returned to the Proligue.

That second promotion set up the club's defining moment. In 2026, with goalkeeper Milos Mocevic voted the division's best and Allan Villeminot named MVP, Caen won the Proligue playoffs and secured a first-ever place in the Starligue, France's top flight. They opened that campaign on 6 September 2026 against Dunkerque.

None of that history has involved Cherbourg, and that is precisely the point of the fixture. JS Cherbourg sits just up the coast, and the two clubs' meetings are known simply as the Derby Normand.