Bandy is a
winter sport and
ball sport
This is a list of ball games and ball sports that include a ball as a key element in the activity, usually for Score (sport), scoring points.
Games that include balls
Ball sports fall within many sport categories, some sports within multiple cate ...
played by two
teams
A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal.
As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interd ...
wearing
ice skates
Ice skates are metal blades attached underfoot and used to propel the bearer across a sheet of ice while ice skating.
The first ice skates were made from leg bones of horse, ox or deer, and were attached to feet with leather straps. These skates ...
on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.
[
The playing surface, called a ]bandy field
A bandy field or bandy rink is a large ice rink used for playing the team winter sport of bandy. Being about the size of a football pitch, it is substantially larger than an ice hockey rink.
History
Originally, bandy was played on naturally froz ...
or bandy rink, is a sheet of ice which measures by , about the size of a football pitch
A football pitch or soccer field is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is ty ...
. The field is considerably larger than the ice rink
An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water or an artificial sheet of ice where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The growth and increasing popularity of ...
s commonly used for ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
.
The sport has a common background with association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
, ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
, shinty
Shinty () is a team sport played with sticks and a ball. It is played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and among Highland migrants to the major cities of Scotland. The sport was formerly more widespread in Scotland and even played in Northern ...
, and field hockey
Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...
. Bandy's origins are debatable, but its first rules were organized and published in England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
in 1882.
Internationally, bandy's strongest nations in both men's and women's competitions have long been Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
and Russia; both countries have established professional men's bandy leagues. In Russia, it is estimated that more than one million people play bandy. The sport also has organized league play and fans in other countries, including Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
, Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
, and Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
. The premier international bandy competition for men is the Bandy World Championship and for women it is the Women's Bandy World Championship.
Organized bandy started in the late 19th century; however, until 1955, there was no established international governing body for the sport. The international governing body for bandy today is the Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
(FIB) which formed in February 1955. In 2001, bandy was recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
(IOC). Both traditional eleven-a-side bandy and rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
(which is played on a smaller rink) are recognized by the IOC. Based on the number of participating athletes, the FIB has claimed bandy is the world's second-most participated winter sport after ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
,[''Bandyportföljen'' magazine, no. 4 2017/18, pp. 12-13] but it is not recorded how many of these participants are male and how many are female.
History
Background
The earliest origin of the sport is debated. Though many Russians see their old countrymen as the creators of the sport – reflected by the unofficial title for bandy, "Russian hockey" (русский хоккей) – Russia, Sweden, medieval Iceland (it has been compared to knattleikr
' (English: 'ball-game') was an ancient ball game played by the Vikings of Iceland. The term is also applied to a modern sport created by re-enactors, and now played at a few United States institutions as a college club sport, based on what is k ...
), the Netherlands, England, and Wales each had pastimes, such as bando
Bando (, ) is a defensive unarmed martial art from Myanmar. Bando is sometimes mistakenly used as a generic word for all Burmese martial arts, but it is only one martial art; Burmese fighting systems collectively are referred to as ''Thaing (bu ...
, which can be seen as forerunners of bandy. The mid-eighteenth-century ''Devonshire Dialogue
Mary Palmer (née Reynolds; 9 February 1716 – 27 May 1794) was a British author from Devon who wrote ''Devonshire Dialogue'', once considered the "best piece of literature in the West Country English, vernacular of Devon." She was the mothe ...
'' collection lists Bandy as "a game, like that of Golf, in which the adverse parties endeavour to beat a ball (generally a knob or gnarl from the trunk of a tree,) opposite ways... the stick with which the game is played is crook'd at the end".
The sport's first published set of organized rules was codified in 1882 by Charles Goodman Tebbutt of the Bury Fen Bandy Club. When the international federation was founded in 1955, it came about after a compromise between Russian and English rules, in which more of the English rules prevailed.
Since association football was already popular in England, the codified bandy rules took after much of the football rules. Like association football, games are normally two 45 minute halves and there are 11 players per side. Players sticks are curved like large field hockey sticks and the bandy ball
A bandy ball is a rubber ball used for playing bandy and rink bandy. Bandy balls are manufactured by companies such as Jofa, Kosa, and Reebok.
The core of the ball is made of cork and is surrounded by rubber or rubber-like plastic. Balls ...
is roughly the size of a tennis ball with a cork core and hard plastic coating. Bandy balls were originally usually red but are now either orange or more commonly cerise.
Early days
19th Century: the sport is formalised
Bandy as an ice skating sport first developed in Britain. It developed as a winter sport in the Fens
The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system o ...
of East Anglia
East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included.
The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...
. Large expanses of ice would form on the flooded meadows or shallow washes in cold winters where fen skating, which has been a tradition dating back to at least medieval times, took place. Bandy's early recorded modernization period can be traced back to 1813.
Members of the Bury Fen Bandy Club published rules of the game in 1882, and introduced it into other European countries. A variety of stick and ball games involving ice skating were introduced to North America by the 1800s but failed to organize and develop popular rules codes. However, these stick and ball games became one of the eventual antecedents of the modern sport of ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
, whose first rules were codified in Canada in 1875, almost a decade before the rules of modern bandy were established in Britain.
The first international bandy match took place in 1891 between Bury Fen and the Haarlemsche Hockey & Bandy Club from the Netherlands (a club which after a couple of club fusions now is named HC Bloemendaal
Hockey Club Bloemendaal (), commonly known as Bloemendaal, is a Dutch professional field hockey club based in Bloemendaal, North Holland. It was established on 26 April 1895, and is one of the oldest field hockey clubs in the Netherlands. Originall ...
). The same year, the National Bandy Association was established as a governing body for the sport in England.[ National governing federations for bandy were also founded in the 1890s in the Netherlands and Russia and in the following decade in Finland (then part of the Russian Empire), Sweden, and Norway.
The match later dubbed "the original bandy match", was actually held in 1875 at ]The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around ...
in London. However, at the time, the game was called "hockey on the ice", probably as it was considered an ice variant of field hockey
Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...
.
An early maker of bandy sticks was the firm of Gray's, Cambridge. One such stick, now in the collections of the Museum of Cambridge
The Museum of Cambridge, formerly known as the Cambridge & County Folk Museum, is a museum located in Castle Street, Cambridge, Castle Street in central Cambridge, England.
Overview
The museum is housed in the former White Horse Inn, a Grade ...
, has a length of rope twisted round the handle to rescue any player who might fall through the ice, as the game was played on frozen lakes back then. An 1899 photo of two players demonstrating the game shows the sticks being held single-handed.
Historically, bandy was a popular sport in some central and western European countries until the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, and from 1901 to 1926 it was played in the Scandinavian Nordic Games
The Nordic Games were the first international multi-sport event that focused primarily on winter sports, and were held at varying intervals between 1901 and 1926. It was organized by Sweden's Swedish Central Association for the Promotion of ...
, the first international multi-sport event
A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports among organized teams of athletes from (mostly) nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of intern ...
focused on winter sports.
First national bandy league
The first national bandy league in modern history was started in Sweden in 1902.[
]
Bandy in the Nordic Games
Bandy was played at the Nordic Games
The Nordic Games were the first international multi-sport event that focused primarily on winter sports, and were held at varying intervals between 1901 and 1926. It was organized by Sweden's Swedish Central Association for the Promotion of ...
in both Stockholm
Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
and Kristiania
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022, an ...
(present day Oslo
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
) in 1901, 1903, 1905, 1909, 1913
Events January
* January – Joseph Stalin travels to Vienna to research his ''Marxism and the National Question''. This means that, during this month, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito are all living in the city.
* January 3 &ndash ...
, 1917, 1922 and 1926, and between Swedish, Finnish and Russian teams at similar games in Helsinki
Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...
in 1907. Bandy appeared as a sport in all eight editions of the Nordic Games from 1901 to 1926.
Etymology
The sport's English name comes from the verb "to bandy", from the Middle French
Middle French () is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the mid-14th to the early 17th centuries. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from the other co ...
("to strike back and forth"), and originally referred to a seventeenth-century Irish game similar to field hockey. The curved stick was also called a "bandy". The etymological connection to the similarly named Welsh hockey game of bando
Bando (, ) is a defensive unarmed martial art from Myanmar. Bando is sometimes mistakenly used as a generic word for all Burmese martial arts, but it is only one martial art; Burmese fighting systems collectively are referred to as ''Thaing (bu ...
is not clear.
An old name for bandy is ''hockey on the ice''; in the first rule books from England at the turn of the century 1900, the sport is literally called "bandy or hockey on the ice". Since the early 20th century, the term bandy is usually preferred to prevent confusion with ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
.
The sport is known as bandy in many languages, with a few exceptions. In Russia, bandy is called "Russian hockey" () or more frequently, and officially, "hockey with a ball" () while ice hockey is called "hockey with a puck" () or more frequently just "hockey". If the context makes it clear that bandy is the subject, it as well can be called just "hockey". In Belarusian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian it is also called "hockey with a ball" (, and respectively). In Slovak "bandy hockey" () is the name. In Armenian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mongol and Uzbek, bandy is known as "ball hockey" (, , , and respectively). In Finnish the two sports are distinguished as "ice ball" () and "ice puck" (), as well as in Hungarian (), although in Hungarian it is more often called "bandy" nowadays. In Estonian and Lithuanian bandy is also called "ice ball" (; ). In Mandarin Chinese it is "bandy ball" (). In Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
the name is "ice shinty" (). In old times shinty
Shinty () is a team sport played with sticks and a ball. It is played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and among Highland migrants to the major cities of Scotland. The sport was formerly more widespread in Scotland and even played in Northern ...
or shinney were also sometimes used in English for bandy.
Because of its similarities with association football, bandy is also nicknamed "winter football" ().[
]
Historical relationship with other sports
Bandy and association football
With association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
and ''hockey on ice'' or bandy both being popular sports in parts of Europe around 1900, bandy was highly influenced by football and taking after its main rules: having a field approximately the same size, having the same number of players on each team and having the same game time (2×45 minutes). It is natural that bandy got the nickname 'winter football'.
It was common for sports clubs to have both a bandy and a football section, with athletes playing both sports but at different times of the year. Some examples are ''Nottingham Forest Football and Bandy Club'' in England (today known just as Nottingham Forest F.C.
Nottingham Forest Football Club is a professional association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football.
Founded in 1865, Nottingham Forest h ...
) and Norwegian Strømsgodset IF
Strømsgodset IF is a Norwegian multi-sports club from Gulskogen in Drammen. It has sections for association football, handball and bandy, but is best known for the top-level football section known as Strømsgodset Toppfotball, which plays in Elit ...
and Mjøndalen IF, with both having an active bandy section.
In Sweden, most football clubs that were active during the first half of the 20th century also played bandy. Swedish player Orvar Bergmark
Orvar Bergmark (16 November 1930 – 10 May 2004) was a Swedish association football, football defender (association football), defender, Manager (association football), manager and bandy player. He was the second Sweden national manager, and ...
earned silver medals in the world championships of both sports in the 1950s. Later, as the season for each sport increased in time, it was not as easy for the players to engage in both sports, so some clubs came to concentrate on one or the other. Many old clubs still have both sports on their program. Sten-Ove Ramberg is the last Swedish male player in both national teams (1978 in bandy, 1979–1984 in football).
Bandy and ice hockey
No clear distinction between bandy and ice hockey was made before the 1920s. As bandy in a way can be seen as a precursor to ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
, bandy has influenced the development and history of ice hockey, mainly in European and former Soviet countries. While modern ice hockey was created in Canada, a variety of games which bore a closer resemblance to bandy were initially played there after British soldiers introduced the game of bandy in the late 19th century. At the same time as modern ice hockey rules were formalized in British North America
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, ...
(present-day Canada), bandy rules were decided upon in Europe. A cross between English and Russian bandy rules eventually developed with the football-inspired English rules (''cf'' the passage above about bandy and Association football) becoming dominant, together with the Russian low-border along most of the two sidelines, an addition to the sport which has maintained its presence since the 1950s.
Before Canadians introduced ice hockey into Europe in the early 20th century, "hockey
''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...
" was another name for bandy, and still is in parts of Russia and Kazakhstan.
Both bandy and ice hockey were played in Europe during the 20th century, especially in Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Ice hockey became more popular than bandy in most of Europe, mostly because it had become an Olympic sport, while bandy had not. Athletes in Europe who had played bandy switched to ice hockey in the 1920s to compete in the Olympics. The smaller ice fields needed for ice hockey also made its rinks easier to maintain, especially in countries with short winters.[ On the other hand, ice hockey was not played in the Soviet Union until the 1950s, when the ]USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
wanted to compete internationally. The typical European style of ice hockey, with flowing, less physical play, represents a heritage of bandy.
Modern development
World Championships and Russian performance
Since the 1950s, when the Soviet Union ended its isolation and started to take part in international sports events, there has been a reason to play world championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
. The International Bandy Federation was founded in 1955 and the first world championships were played in 1957 with the Soviet Union and then Russia (as its successor country in 1993) almost consistently in a top position in the sport of bandy alongside Sweden. Finland has won once, in 2004.
In a similar fashion, Russia, along with Sweden, has emerged as one of the two dominant women's bandy nations internationally in the Women's Bandy World Championship.
Women's bandy
Women's bandy uses the exact same rules as men, but the women's game is played separately. Women have been playing bandy since the sport was originally developed. Although there were several attempts in the early part of the 19th century to organize bandy leagues for women's teams, regular leagues only started in the 1970s in Sweden and Finland and then later in the 1980s in Norway and the Soviet Union.
Highest altitude
The highest altitude where bandy has been played is in Khorugh
Khorog ( ), also Khorugh ( ) or Kharagh ( ), is the capital of Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan. It is also the capital of the Shughnon District of Gorno-Badakhshan. It has a population of 30,500 (2020 ).
Khorog is above sea level in the Pamir M ...
, the capital of the Tajik autonomous province of Gorno-Badakhshan
Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area but only two percent of its popul ...
. Khorugh is situated above sea level in the Pamir Mountains.
Bandy moving indoors
Starting in the 1980s and increasingly since the turn of the millennium, more and more indoor arenas for bandy have been built (often as joint arenas to be used also for football or speed skating). The use of indoor arenas makes the effects of the weather on a game virtually insignificant, something which earlier always have been a factor to consider for the teams and the audiences. However, unlike some other sports, bandy is still the same game with the same rules indoors or outdoors and no changes are made to the rules depending on whether there's a roof overhead or not. Many games, even in the highest leagues, are still played outdoors. In Sweden there are more indoor arenas than in all other countries combined.
Overview
Bandy is played on ice, using a single round bandy ball
A bandy ball is a rubber ball used for playing bandy and rink bandy. Bandy balls are manufactured by companies such as Jofa, Kosa, and Reebok.
The core of the ball is made of cork and is surrounded by rubber or rubber-like plastic. Balls ...
. Two teams of 11 players each compete to get the ball into the other team's goal using bandy sticks, thereby scoring a goal. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner. If both teams have scored an equal number of goals, then, with some exceptions, the game is a draw
Draw, drawing, draws, or drawn most commonly refer to:
* Draw (terrain), a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them
* Draw (tie), in a competition, where competitors achieve equal outcomes
* Draw ...
. The game is designed to be played on a rectangular sheet of ice, called a bandy field
A bandy field or bandy rink is a large ice rink used for playing the team winter sport of bandy. Being about the size of a football pitch, it is substantially larger than an ice hockey rink.
History
Originally, bandy was played on naturally froz ...
, which is the same size as a football (soccer) field.
In a typical game, players attempt to propel the ball toward their opponents' goal through individual control of the ball, such as by dribbling
In sports, dribbling is maneuvering a ball by one player while moving in a given direction, avoiding defenders' attempts to intercept the ball. A successful dribble will bring the ball past defenders legally and create opportunities to score.
As ...
, passing the ball to a teammate, and taking shots at the goal, which is guarded by the opposing goalkeeper. Opposing players may try to regain control of the ball by intercepting a pass or tackling
Tackle may refer to:
* In football:
** Tackle (football move), a play in various forms of football
** Tackle (gridiron football position), a position in American football and Canadian football
** Dump tackle, a forceful move in rugby of picking up ...
the opponent who controls the ball. However, physical contact between opponents is limited. Bandy is generally a free-flowing game, with play stopping only when the ball has left the field of play, or when play is stopped by the referee
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...
. After a stoppage, play can recommence with a free stroke, a penalty shot or a corner stroke. If the ball has left the field along the sidelines, the referee must decide which team touched the ball last, and award a restart stroke to the opposing team, just like football's throw-in.
In terms of rules, bandy has several rules that are similar to football. Each team has 11 players, one of whom is a goalkeeper
In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...
. Goalkeepers use gloves made specifically for their position and wear them on both hands but do not use any type of stick. The offside rule, which in general is similar to the one used in football, is also employed. A goal cannot be scored from a goal throw, but unlike football, a goal can be scored from a stroke-in or a corner stroke. All free strokes are "direct" and allow a goal to be scored without another player touching the ball. A primary rule is that players (other than the goalkeepers) may not intentionally touch the ball with their heads, hands or arms during play. Although players usually use their sticks to move the ball around, they may use any part of their bodies other than their heads, hands or arms and may use their skates in a limited manner.
The rules do not specify any player positions other than goalkeeper, but a number of player specialisations have evolved. Broadly, these include three main categories:
* forwards, whose main task is to score goals
* defenders, who specialise in preventing their opponents from scoring
* midfielders, who take the ball from the opposition and pass it to the forwards.
Players in these positions are referred to as outfield players, to discern them from the single goalkeeper. These positions are further differentiated by which side of the field the player spends most time in. For example, there are central defenders, and left and right midfielders. The ten outfield players may be arranged in these positions in any combination (for example, there may be three defenders, five midfielders, and two forwards), and the number of players in each position determines the style of the team's play; more forwards and fewer defenders would create a more aggressive and offensive-minded game, while the reverse would create a slower, more defensive style of play. While players may spend most of the game in a specific position, there are few restrictions on player movement, and players can switch positions at any time. The layout of the players on the pitch is called the team's formation, and defining the team's formation and tactics is usually the prerogative of the team's manager(s). Formation in bandy is often comparable to the formation in association football.
Shouldering is allowed in checking situations and body contact therefore does occur, but body checking and fighting are illegal.
Bandy is a swift game. Elite players have a mean skating velocity of over 16 km/h and the skating velocity can in some cases reach 37 km/h.[
]
Rules
There are eighteen rules in official play, designed to apply to all levels of bandy, although certain modifications for groups such as juniors, veterans or women are permitted. The rules are often framed in broad terms, which allow flexibility in their application depending on the nature of the game. A game is officiated by a referee, the authority and enforcer of the rules, whose decisions are final. The referee may have one or two assistant referees. A secretary outside of the field often takes care of the match protocol.
The Bandy Playing Rules
Bandy Playing Rules is the name of the rule book for bandy, edited by the Federation of International Bandy. The rule book is available online. The current book was adopted in September 2013.
The rule book and the rules are overseen by the Rules a ...
can be found on the official website of the Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
, and are overseen by the Rules and Referee Committee.
Players
Each team consists of a maximum of 11 players (excluding substitutes), one of whom must be the goalkeeper. A team of fewer than eight players may not start a game. Goalkeepers are the only players allowed to play the ball with their hands or arms, and they are only allowed to do so within the penalty area in front of their own goal.[Ninh.co.uk: "The Rules of Bandy - EXPLAINED!"]
retrieved 14 October 2017
Though there are a variety of positions in which the outfield (non-goalkeeper) players are strategically placed by a coach, these positions are not defined or required by the rules of the game.
The positions and formations of the players in bandy are virtually the same as the common association football positions
In the sport of association football, each of the 11 players on a team is assigned to a particular position on the field of play. A team is made up of one goalkeeper and ten outfield players who fill various defensive, midfield, and attacking p ...
and the same terms are used for the different positions of the players. A team usually consists of defenders, midfielders and forwards. The defenders can play in the form of centre-backs, full-backs and sometimes wing-backs, midfielders playing in the centre, attacking or defensive, and forwards in the form of centre forward, second strikers and sometimes a winger. Sometimes one player is also taking up the role of a libero.
Any number of players may be replaced by substitutes during the course of the game. Substitutions can be performed without notifying the referee and can be performed while the ball is in play. However, the substitute must leave the ice before the teammate enters it. A team can bring at the most four substitutes to the game, five if one of these is an extra goalkeeper.[
]
Formation
Formation in bandy describes how the players in a team generally position themselves on the rink and is often comparable to the formation in association football. The team's manager(s) define the team's formation while tactics are usually their prerogative as well.
Bandy is a fluid and fast-moving game, and (with the exception of the goalkeeper
In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...
) a player's position in a formation defines their role less rigidly than — for instance — for a rugby player, nor are there episodes in play where players must expressly line up in formation (as in ). The bandy games are more similar to association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
in this regard. Nevertheless, a player's position in a formation generally defines whether a player has a mostly defensive or attacking role, and whether they tend to play towards one side of the pitch or centrally.
Duration and tie-breaking measures
A standard adult bandy match consists of two periods of 45 minutes each, known as halves. Each half runs continuously, meaning the clock is not stopped when the ball is out of play; the referee can, however, make allowance for time lost through significant stoppages as described below. There is usually a 15-minute half-time
In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...
break. The end of the match is known as full-time.
The referee is the official timekeeper for the match and may make an allowance for time lost through substitutions, injured players requiring attention, or other stoppages. This added time is commonly referred to as ''stoppage time'' or ''injury-time'', and must be reported to the match secretary and the two captains. The referee alone signals the end of the match.
If it is very cold or if it is snowing, the match can be broken into thirds of 30 minutes each. At the extremely cold 1999 World Championship some matches were played in four periods of 15 minutes each and with extra long breaks in between. In the World Championships the two halves can be 30 minutes each for the nations in the B division.
In league competitions, games may end in a draw, but in some knockout competitions if a game is tied at the end of regulation time it may go into extra time, which usually consists of two further 10-minute periods. If the score is still tied after extra time, the game will be decided on penalties. The teams shoot five penalties each and if this doesn't settle the game, the teams shoot one more penalty each until one of them misses and the other scores.
Ball in and out of play
Under the rules, the two basic states of play during a game are ''ball in play'' and ''ball out of play''. From the beginning of each playing period
Playing period is a division of time in a sports or games, in which play occurs. Many games are divided into a fixed number of periods, which may be named for the number of divisions. Other games use terminology independent of the total number of ...
with a stroke-off (a set strike from the centre-spot by one team) until the end of the playing period, the ball is in play at all times, except when either the ball leaves the field of play, or play is stopped by the referee. When the ball becomes out of play, play is restarted by one of six restart methods depending on how it went out of play:
* Stroke-off
* Goal-throw
* Corner stroke
* Free-stroke
* Penalty shot
A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a Goal (sport), goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or k ...
* Face-off
A face-off is the method used to begin and restart play after goals in some sports using sticks, primarily ice hockey, bandy, floorball, broomball, rinkball, and lacrosse.
During a face-off, two teams line up in opposition to each other, and the ...
If the time runs out while a team is preparing for a free-stroke or penalty, the strike should still be made but it must go into the goal by one shot to count as a goal. Similarly, a goal made via a corner stroke should be allowed, but it must be executed using only one shot in addition to the strike needed to put the ball in play.
Free-strokes and penalty shots
Free-strokes can be awarded to a team if a player of the opposite team breaks any rule, for example, by hitting with the stick against the opponent's stick or skates. Free-strokes can also be awarded upon incorrect execution of corner-strikes, free-strikes, goal-throws, and so on, or the use of incorrect equipment, such as a broken stick.
Rather than stopping play, the referee
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...
may allow play to continue when its continuation will benefit the team against which an offence has been committed. This is known as "playing an advantage". The referee may "call back" play and penalise the original offence if the anticipated advantage does not ensue within a short period of time, typically taken to be four to five seconds. Even if an offence is not penalised because the referee plays an advantage, the offender may still be sanctioned (see below) for any associated misconduct at the next stoppage of play.
If a defender violently attacks an opponent within the penalty area, a penalty shot is awarded. Certain other offences, when carried out within the penalty area, for instance a defender holding or hooking an attacker, or blocking a goal situation with a lifted skate, thrown stick or glove and so on result in a penalty shot. Also, the defenders (with the exception of the goal-keeper) are not allowed to kneel or lie on the ice. The final offences that might mandate a penalty shot are those of hitting or blocking an opponent's stick or touching the ball with the hands, arms, stick or head. A 10-minute penalty or a red card may be issued to the offending player as well.
Warnings and penalties
A yellow card indicates a warning given to an entire team for technical fouls such as errors in the execution of goal-throws or free strokes, or the obstruction of a player without ball. Subsequent technical fouls by the same team result in a five-minute penalty indicated by a white card. A five-minute penalty is indicated through the use of a white card, which is half of the time of the blue card and can be caused by trying to hinder opponents from executing a free-stroke, illegal substitution or repeated illegal but non-violent attacks on an opponent. A ten-minute penalty is indicated by use of a blue card and can be caused by protesting or behaving incorrectly, attacking an opponent violently or stopping the ball incorrectly to get an advantage.
The third time a player receives a time penalty, it will be a personal penalty, meaning he or she will miss the remainder of the match. A substitute can enter the field after five or ten minutes, depending on the type of time penalty received. A full game penalty can be received upon using abusive language or directly attacking an opponent and means that the player can neither play nor be substituted for the remainder of the game. A match penalty
Match penalty is a term used in some sports for a player having committed such a serious offense that they are sent off for the rest of the game. The term is used in bandy, floorball, and ice hockey.
Bandy
In bandy, it is indicated with a red ...
is indicated through the use of a red card.
Offside
The offside rule effectively limits the ability to attack players to remain forward (i.e. closer to the opponent's goal-line) of the ball, the second-to-last defending player (which can include the goalkeeper), and the half-way line. This rule is in general similar to that of soccer.
Equipment
The basic equipment players are required to wear includes a pair of bandy skates, a helmet
A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protecti ...
, a mouthguard and, in the case of the goalkeeper, a faceguard.
The teams must wear uniforms that make it easy to distinguish the two teams. The goalkeeper wears distinct colours to be singled out from his or her teammates, just as in football. The ice skates, sticks and any tape on the stick must be of another colour than the bandy ball
A bandy ball is a rubber ball used for playing bandy and rink bandy. Bandy balls are manufactured by companies such as Jofa, Kosa, and Reebok.
The core of the ball is made of cork and is surrounded by rubber or rubber-like plastic. Balls ...
, which is orange or cerise.
In addition to the aforementioned items, various pieces of gear are used to protect the knees, elbows, genitals and throat. The pants and gloves may contain padding.
Bandy stick
The stick used in bandy is an essential part of the sport. It should be made of an approved material such as wood or a similar material and should not contain any metal or sharp parts which can hurt the surrounding players.
Sticks are crooked and are available in five angles, where 1 has the smallest bend and 5 has the most. Bend 4 is the most common size in professional bandy.
The bandy stick should not have similar colours to the ball
A ball is a round object (usually spherical, but sometimes ovoid) with several uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for s ...
, such as orange or pink; it should be no longer than , and no wider than .
Bandy field
A bandy field
A bandy field or bandy rink is a large ice rink used for playing the team winter sport of bandy. Being about the size of a football pitch, it is substantially larger than an ice hockey rink.
History
Originally, bandy was played on naturally froz ...
is by , a total of , or about the same size as a football pitch
A football pitch or soccer field is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is ty ...
and considerably larger than an ice hockey rink
An ice hockey rink is an ice rink that is specifically designed for ice hockey, a competitive team sport. Alternatively it is used for other sports such as broomball, ringette, rinkball, and rink bandy. It is a rectangle with rounded corners and ...
, which is by . Along the sidelines a high border (vant, sarg, wand, wall) is placed to prevent the ball from leaving the ice. It should not be attached to the ice, to glide upon collisions, and should end away from the corners.
Centered at each shortline is a wide and high goal cage and in front of the cage is a half-circular penalty area with a radius. A penalty spot is located in front of the goal and there are two free-stroke spots at the penalty area line, each surrounded by a circle.
A centre spot with a circle of radius denotes the center of the field. A centre-line is drawn through the centre spot parallel with the shortlines.
At each of the corners, a radius quarter-circle is drawn, and a dotted line is painted parallel to the shortline and away from it without extending into the penalty area. The dotted line can be replaced with a long line starting at the edge of the penalty area and extending towards the sideline, from the shortline.
The goal cage used in bandy is wide and high and is the largest one used by any organized winter team sport.
Protective equipment
Bandy players require protective equipment, some of which is designed specifically for the sport such as the bandy chinguard. Equipment is similar to that worn in ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
but is typically smaller, lighter, and more flexible, and more closely resembles the equipment worn in the modern sport of ringette
Ringette is a winter team sport played on an ice rink using ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice surfaces. While the sport was originally created exclusively for female c ...
.
All players are required to wear helmets. While some bandy players are required to wear facemasks such as young players, some outfield players only wear a helmet with a bandy chin guard. Goaltenders are the exception and must wear a helmet and facemask at all times.
International
International games in the early years
The first international games were played by club teams in the 1890s.
Starting in the first decade of the 20th century, friendlies were played between national teams of some European countries. While games like this did not take place in central and western Europe after the 1910s, the Nordic countries of Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden continued, doing it more regularly during the 1920s and 1930s with annually or semi-annually recurring friendlies between some of them.
Sweden tried to play friendly games against the Soviet Union in the 1940s, but it did not come to be until the mid-1950s.
Nordic Games
Bandy was played as one of the sports at the Nordic Games
The Nordic Games were the first international multi-sport event that focused primarily on winter sports, and were held at varying intervals between 1901 and 1926. It was organized by Sweden's Swedish Central Association for the Promotion of ...
, international winter sports events held during the first few decades of the 20th century.
International federation
The Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace, or International Ice Hockey Federation
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; ; ) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 84 member countries.
The IIHF maintains the IIHF World Ranking based on international ice hockey to ...
as it is more well known as today, was founded in 1908 and was governing some bandy competitions in its early years, before only concentrating on ice hockey.
The Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
(FIB) was formed as ''International Bandy Federation'' in 1955 and has had 33 members at most, each representing a country where bandy is played. Currently, there are 27 members of the federation. The name of the federation was changed to the present one in 2001 after the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
approved it as a so-called " recognized sport". The abbreviation "IBF" was at the time already used by another recognized sports federation, and IOC considers it important that the official abbreviations of sports federations are unique, so that the federations are not mistaken for one another.
In 2004, FIB was fully accepted by IOC. FIB is now a member of Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations
The Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation constituted through and recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The ARISF's members are international spor ...
.
World Championships
Men
The Bandy World Championship for men is arranged by the FIB and was first held in 1957. It was held every two years starting in 1961, and every year since 2003.
Currently, the record number of countries participating in the World Championships is twenty (2019). Since the number of countries playing bandy is not large, every country which can set up a team is welcome to take part in the World Championship. The quality of the teams varies; however, with only six nations, Sweden, the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, Russia, Finland, Norway, and Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
, having won medals (allowing for the fact that Russia's team took over from the Soviet Union in 1993
The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as:
* International Year for the World's Indigenous People
The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...
). Finland won the 2004 world championship in Västerås
Västerås () is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Mälaren, Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 158,653, over 100,000 mo ...
, Sweden, while all other championships have been won by Sweden, the Soviet Union and Russia.
The Soviet Union won all championships until 1981, when Sweden managed to break the streak of eleven straight gold medals. Sweden won again in the next tournament in 1983, but Soviet again seized the victory in 1985. The Soviet Union also won at its last two appearances, and then Sweden won in 1993, 1995 and 1997. Russia, having taken over after the Soviet Union, and Sweden have kept on winning all championships between them except for 2004, when Finland managed to claim the win.
In 2020, the B division of the World Championship was played, but the A division – which was to be played about a month later – was first postponed a couple of times due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
and later moved to the next year as the pandemic did not end. The championship tournament could however not be played in 2021 either. In 2022, the championship was finally to be held, but since it was scheduled to be played in Russia, many national federations said they did not want to participate because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
and it was cancelled by the FIB since this meant there would have been too few competing teams.
Women
The first World Championship for women took place in February 2004 in Lappeenranta
Lappeenranta (; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of South Karelia. It is located in the southeastern interior of the country and in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Lappeenranta is approximately , while the Lappeenranta sub-r ...
, Finland. Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
won the championship without conceding a goal. In the 2014 women's World Championship Russia won for the first time, defeating Sweden, making it the first time Sweden did not win the world title. In 2016 Sweden took the title back.
The 2018 women's tournament was played in a country situated completely in Asia for the first time, when it was hosted in Chengde
Chengde, formerly known as Jehol and Rehe, is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, situated about northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden and palace formerly used by the Qing e ...
, China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. It was the same for the men's tournament that same year (the area north and west of the Ural River
The Ural, also known as the Yaik , is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia. It originates in the southern Ural Mountains and discharges into the Caspian Sea. At , it is the third-longes ...
is located in Europe, thus Kazakhstan, which had hosted a world championship before, is a transcontinental country
This is a list of countries with territory that straddles more than one continent, known as transcontinental states or intercontinental states.
Contiguous transcontinental countries are states that have one continuous or immediately-adjacent pie ...
), when Harbin
Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
hosted the 2018 Division B tournament.
The 2020 championship saw China withdraw its participation due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, but the tournament was held in Norway in February and the pandemic had not yet reached Europe. In 2022
The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...
when the championship was played in Sweden, China did not yet return, while Russia and Ukraine both withdrew because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
.
Youth
There are also Youth Bandy World Championships in different age groups for boys and young men and in one age group for girls. The oldest group is the under 23 championship, Bandy World Championship Y-23.
Olympic Movement
During most of the 20th century, a host nation for Olympic Games had the right to arrange demonstration games for almost any sport of its own choosing. In 1952, the Winter Olympic Games were arranged in Oslo, Norway, and the Norwegians presented bandy as a demonstration sport. The tournament of bandy at the 1952 Winter Olympics
Bandy was held as a demonstration sport at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo. A men's program was included but not a women's program.
Sweden, Norway and Finland participated with their best players and won one match each. All three teams also los ...
was played by three countries, Norway, Finland and Sweden. This is the only time bandy has been played at Olympic Games.
Bandy was officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
(IOC) under the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations
The Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation constituted through and recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The ARISF's members are international spor ...
(ARISF) in 2004, and was played as a demonstration sport
A demonstration sport, or exhibition sport, is a sport which is played to promote it, rather than as part of standard medal competition. This occurs commonly during the Olympic Games but may also occur at other sporting events.
Demonstration sport ...
at the 1952 Winter Olympics
The 1952 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VI Olympic Winter Games (; ) and commonly known as Oslo 1952, were a winter multi-sport event held from 14 to 25 February 1952 in Oslo, the capital of Norway.
Discussions about Oslo hosting ...
in Oslo
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
. However, it has yet to officially be played at the Olympics
The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...
.
According to the FIB, bandy is the world's second-most participated winter sport after ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
based on the number of participating athletes. It is unclear how many of the players participate in the male category and how many in the female category. The FIB has also recorded bandy (men's) as having ranked as the number two winter sport in terms of tickets sold per day of competitions at the sport's world championship.[
However, compared with the seven ]Winter Olympic sports
Olympic sports are sports that are contested in the Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games. The 2024 Summer Olympics included 32 sports; the 2022 Winter Olympics included seven sports. Each Olympic sport is represented at the Internation ...
, bandy's popularity among other winter sports across the globe is considered by the International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
to have a, "gap between popularity and participation and global audiences", which is a roadblock to future Olympic inclusion.
In addition, the Olympic Charter
The Olympic Charter is a set of rules and guidelines for the organisation of the Olympic Games, and for governing the Olympic movement. Its last revision was on the 17th of July 2020 during the List of IOC meetings, 136th IOC Session, held by v ...
requires a sport to be widely practiced by men in at least 75 countries and on four continents, and by women in no fewer than 40 countries and on three continents in order to be accepted.
FIB president Boris Skrynnik lobbied for bandy to be included in the 2014 Winter Olympics
The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Sochi 2014 (), were an international winter multi-sport event that was held from 7 to 23 February 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Opening ro ...
in Sochi, given Russia's prominence in the sport. Members of the Chinese Olympic Committee
The Chinese Olympic Committee (COC; ; List of IOC country codes, IOC code: CHN) is the National Olympic Committee of China. It is headquartered in Dongcheng, Beijing, Dongcheng, Beijing, China.
Leaders
Timeline concerning Olympic recogni ...
were present at the 2017 world championships to meet with Skrynnik about the possibility of considering the sport for the 2022 Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas wit ...
in Beijing. However, in 2018 it was announced no new sports would be added for 2022.
Asian Winter Games
At the 2011 Asian Winter Games
The 2011 Asian Winter Games (; ), also known as Astana-Almaty 2011 (), were a continental winter multi-sport event held from January 30 to February 6, 2011 in Astana and Almaty, Kazakhstan. It was the first time that Kazakhstan hosted such a larg ...
, open to members of the Olympic Council of Asia
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) is a sports governing body, governing body of sports in Asia, currently with 45 member National Olympic Committees. Talal Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah was elected as President of the OCA on 8 July 2023. However, on 3 ...
, men's bandy was included for the first time. Three teams contested the inaugural competition, and Kazakhstan won the gold medal. The President of Kazakhstan
The president of Kazakhstan, officially the president of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the executive head of state of the Kazakhstan and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan. As the highest-ranking official ...
, Nursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakhstani politician who served as the first president of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019. He also held the special title of Elbasy from 2010 to 2022 and chairman of the Security Council of ...
, attended the final.
There was no bandy competition at the next Games, the 2017 Asian Winter Games
The 2017 Asian Winter Games (), also known as Sapporo 2017 (), were a continental winter multi sport events and the 8th edition of the Asian Winter Games. They were held from February 19 to 26 2017 in Sapporo and Obihiro in Hokkaido, Japan.
The ...
held in Japan.
Winter Universiade/Winter World University Games
Bandy made its debut at the Winter Universiade during the 2019 Games in Krasonyarsk, Russia. Originally a six-team tournament for men and a four-team tournament for women were planned to be held. However, later China withdrew from the men's tournament and was supposed to be replaced by Belarus. Since that did not happen either, participating teams among women were Russia, Sweden, Norway and the United States, while among men Russia, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Kazakhstan.
In 2019, the International University Sports Federation
The International University Sports Federation (FISU; ) is responsible for the organization and governance of worldwide sports competitions for student-athletes between the ages of 17 and 25. It was founded in 1949 as the world governing body of ...
expected bandy to be a part of the 2023 Winter World University Games
The Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games, commonly known as Lake Placid 2023, was a collegiate Multi-sport event, multi-sport winter sports held between January 12 to January 22, 2023 and had Lake Placid, New York, Lake Placid, New York, ...
(Winter World University Games being the new name of the Winter Universiade) too, however, this did not turn out to be so, as the hosts in Lake Placid, USA, did not included it in its schedules and no bandy teams were invited to the games.
World Cup
The World Championships should not be confused with the annual Bandy World Cup competitions. The World Cup is for club teams.
Men
The Bandy World Cup
The Bandy World Cup is an international bandy competition played in Sweden at the beginning of the bandy season every year, in autumn. The participating teams qualify based on their results in the previous bandy season.
The World Cup is not playe ...
for men in Ljusdal
Ljusdal () is a locality and the seat of Ljusdal Municipality, Gävleborg County, Sweden with 6,230 inhabitants in 2010.
Ljusdal is situated on Riksväg 83 which runs between Tönnebro in Söderhamn Municipality in Gävleborg County and � ...
, Sweden, has been played annually since the 1970s and is the biggest bandy tournament for elite-level club teams. It is played indoors in Sandviken
Sandviken is a locality and the seat of Sandviken Municipality in Gävleborg County, Sweden with 26,438 inhabitants in 2023. It is situated about 25 km west of Gävle and lies approximately 190 km north of Stockholm. The rail journey t ...
since 2009 because Ljusdal has no indoor arena. It is expected to return to Ljusdal once an indoor arena has been built. World Cup matches are played day and night, and the tournament is played in four days in late October. The teams participating are mostly, and some years exclusively, from Sweden and Russia, which has the two best leagues in the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
led to the Cup being cancelled in 2020 and 2021.
Women
There is also a club competition for women's bandy teams called Bandy World Cup Women. Its inaugural year was in 2007.
European Cup
The European Cup
The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...
was first played in 1974 and was a competition featuring the national men's champion team from any European country which had a national bandy championship. This meant, at the time, that only four teams competed every year, which were the men's champions from Finland, Norway, the Soviet Union, and Sweden. After the Soviet Union had been dissolved in 1991, the Russian champions took part instead. The cup is not formally defunct, but the last installment was played in 2009.
4 Nations Tournament
The Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
usually arranges a four nations tournament every year between national teams from Norway, Finland, Russia and Sweden. The 2022 tournament was originally set for 21–23 January, but was cancelled after the Swedish Bandy Association
The Swedish Bandy Association () is the governing body of the winter team sport of bandy in Sweden. It organizes the bandy leagues, Elitserien and Allsvenskan for men and Damallsvenskan for women, and the men's and women's national teams. It w ...
announced they would not be hosting it for that season.
Rossiya Tournament (Russian Government Cup)
During the period 1972–1990, the Rossiya Tournament was held semi-annually for national teams in the years when there was no world championship. This tournament was always played in the Soviet Union and arranged by the newspaper '' Sovetskaya Rossiya''. It was affectionately called "the small world championship". From 1992 the tournament was renamed Russian Government Cup. The last instalment was played in 2012.
European Bandy Championship
There has likely never been any European Championship played in bandy. Some sources describe a 1913 European Bandy Championships as having been held in February 1913, in Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, at the same time as the bandy tournament at the 1913 Nordic Games. However, this European Championship tournament likely never happened, or is a conflation of titles, since no contemporary sources have been found.
Overview of international competitions
There are several existing international bandy competitions with events varying based upon age, competitive level, and sex.
Senior
Junior
Variants of bandy and sports developed from bandy
7-a-side bandy
Varieties of bandy exist, utilising the same rules only with slight differences, like seven-a-side bandy with regulation sized goal cages but without corner strokes and often on a smaller sized rink. Seven-a-side bandy was popular in central Europe and in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while eleven-a-side bandy was preferred in the Nordic countries and in Russia. Seven-a-side bandy rules were applied at the Davos Cup in 2016.
Rink bandy
Rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
is a bandy variant played on an ice hockey-size rink. It was originally conceived as a way of practicing bandy in the summertime, when there were no bandy sized indoor rinks but ice hockey rinks had started to be built indoors. Rink bandy is played by basically the same rules as regular bandy but on a playing surface the size of an ice hockey rink
An ice hockey rink is an ice rink that is specifically designed for ice hockey, a competitive team sport. Alternatively it is used for other sports such as broomball, ringette, rinkball, and rink bandy. It is a rectangle with rounded corners and ...
with ice hockey goal cages and six players on each team (or five in the case of the USA Rink Bandy League).
There have been international competitions for rink bandy played by the best bandy players in the 1980s and 1990s, both for club teams and for national teams, there were world championships in rink bandy in those days and the Hofors World Cup for clubs was played annually from 1984 to 1998. When more indoor bandy rinks have been built, rink bandy has more become a sport for lower league teams and recreational play.
Rink bandy was played in the 2012 European Company Sports Games program.
Some member nations of the Federation of International Bandy, which is the international governing body for rink bandy as well as bandy, do not have regulation sized bandy surfaces which are larger than the more common ice hockey ice rink
An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water or an artificial sheet of ice where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The growth and increasing popularity of ...
and therefore only play rink bandy at home; this includes most of the World Championships Group B participants.
Short bandy
In Czechia, the national federation has developed its own version of rink bandy with somewhat different rules, which is meant to help the players transition to playing on a full-sized bandy rink. This is called short bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pitch ...
. Read more in the section on Czechia below.
Rinkball
Rink bandy has in turn led to the creation of the sport of rinkball
Rinkball is a winter team sport played on ice with ice skates and is most popular in Finland, where it is known as ''kaukalopallo''. This ball sport originated in Sweden in the 1960s and from there landed in Finland in the 1970s.
The objective ...
. The sport of rinkball has at times been referred to as a variant of bandy, however it organized by the 1980s and has since become an established organized sport with its own governing body and differs considerably from both bandy and ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
, the sport's two major influences.
Floorball
Bandy is also the predecessor of floorball
Floorball (also known by other names) is a sport played with five players and a goalkeeper in each team. It is played indoors with sticks and a hollow plastic ball with holes. Matches are played in three periods. The sport of bandy also playe ...
, which was invented when people started playing with plastic bandy shaped sticks and lightweight balls when running on the floors of indoor gym halls.
Landbandy
In Sweden, informal games played like bandy but on ice-free ground (usually on gravel or asphalt concrete) are called ''landbandy'' (see landbandy at the Swedish language Wikipedia). The term should not be confused with ''landhockey'', the Swedish term for field hockey.
No roller or parasport variants exist
There is no formal roller sport
Roller sports are sports that use human powered vehicles which use rolling either by gravity or various pushing techniques. Typically ball bearings and polyurethane wheels are used for momentum and traction respectively, and are attached to devic ...
companion to bandy involving either inline skates
Inline skates are boots with wheels arranged in a single line from front to back, allowing one to move in an ice skate-like fashion. Inline skates are technically a type of roller skates, roller skate, but most people associate the term rolle ...
or parallel wheel roller skates
Roller skates are boots with wheels mounted to the bottom, allowing the user to travel on hard surfaces similarly to an ice skater on ice. The first roller skate was an inline skate design, effectively an ice skate with a line of wheels replac ...
, even if rink hockey
Roller hockey (in British English), rink hockey (in American English) or ball roller hockey is a team sport played on roller skates. It is a quad-skate team sport where two teams face-off against one another, trying to drive a hard ball with t ...
can be considered to have some similarities with bandy. There is also no formally organized skateless ice variant of bandy, and bandy does not have any parasport variant.
Countries
Canada
Bandy has been played in Canada since the 1980s, but is not nearly as popular as ice hockey in this country. Friendlies are played against the United States. The Canadian bandy federation is called Canada Bandy.
China
The China Bandy Federation was set up in 2014. Since them, China has since participated in a number of world championship tournaments, with men's, women's and youth teams. China Bandy is mainly financed by private resources. The development of the sport in China is supported by the Harbin Sport University
Harbin Sport University (), also known as the Harbin Institute of Physical Education or HIPE, is a university in Harbin, China, working with research on health and sports.
In 2015, the announcement of a new Olympic winter sports center was mad ...
.
Czechia
A team from Prague in present-day Czechia became Austrian national bandy champions in 1911.
Czechia has been playing in the World Championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
since 2016
2016 was designated as:
* International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly.
* International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...
. As a way of preparing as well as possible for international matches, the Czechs have invented modified rules for games on ice hockey rinks, a variety called short bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pitch ...
, which differs from rink bandy.[Short Bandy – A new successful type of bandy?](_blank)
/ref> The Czech (former rink bandy) national league is now called '' Liga českého národního bandy''.
Estonia
Bandy as an organized sport was played in Estonia in the 1910s to 1930s and the country had a national championship
A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...
for some years. The national team
A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport.
The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...
played friendlies against Finland in the 1920s and 1930s. The sport was played sporadically during the Soviet occupation 1944–1991. It has since then become more organized again, partly through exchange with Finnish clubs and enthusiasts. As of 2018, Estonia takes part in both the Bandy World Championship for men, and the Women's Bandy World Championship.
Finland
Bandy as an organized sport was introduced to Finland from Russia in the 1890s. Finland has been playing bandy friendlies against Sweden and Estonia since its independence in 1917.
The first men's Finnish national championships were held in 1908 and was the first national Finnish championship held in any team sport. National champions have been named every year except for three years in the first half of the 20th century when Finland was at war. The top national league is called Bandyliiga
The Bandyliiga (; 'Bandy League') is the top level of men's bandy in Finland. The league was founded in 1908 as the Jääpallon Suomen mestaruus, SM-sarja ('Bandy Finnish Championship Series') and the present name has been used since the 1991– ...
and is semi-professional. The best players turn fully professional by being recruited by clubs in Sweden or Russia. As of the 2020–21 season, Bandyliiga consisted of the following teams: Akilles, Botnia-69, HIFK
HIFK, the Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna, Helsingfors (IFK, Helsingfors) rf (officially abbreviated IFK Helsingfors, colloquially often Helsingfors IFK or Helsingin IFK) is a multi-sport association based in Helsinki, Finland. Formed in 1897 on ...
, JPS, Kampparit, Narukerä
Narukerä is a Finnish bandy team based in the town of Pori in the Satakunta, Satakunta region of Finland. The 1965 established team has won two Finnish bandy championships, in 1999 and 2023, but has got 13 medals in total, most recently bronze ...
, OLS, Veiterä and WP 35.
Finland was an original member of the Federation of International Bandy and is the only country besides Russia/Soviet Union and Sweden to have won a Bandy World Championship, which it did in 2004
2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO).
Events January
* January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...
.
The Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
(FIB) is planning for a major premiere for indoor bandy in Finland in 2023 with the venue taking place at an indoor arena in Lappeenranta
Lappeenranta (; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of South Karelia. It is located in the southeastern interior of the country and in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Lappeenranta is approximately , while the Lappeenranta sub-r ...
. When the arena is ready, an international inauguration is to take place with a 4-nation bandy tournament. Participants will include teams from Russia, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The tournament is scheduled for 20–22 January 2023.
Germany
Bandy was played in Germany in the early 20th century, including by Crown Prince Wilhelm, but the interest died out in favour of ice hockey. The Leipziger Sportclub, which arguably had the best team, was also the last club to give bandy up. The sport was reintroduced to Germany in the 2010s, with the German Bandy Federation being founded in 2013. Germany has been participating in the Bandy World Championship, a competition for male competitors, since 2014
The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...
.
India
Bandy is being played in northern parts of India close to the Himalayas, where there is usually cold weather and snow in the winter time. A national championship is contested every year, but India has yet to send a national team to the World Championships or any other international competition.
Kazakhstan
Bandy has a long history in many parts of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
and it used to be one of the most popular sports in Soviet times. However, after independence it suffered a rapid decline in popularity and only remained in Oral
The word oral may refer to:
Relating to the mouth
* Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid
**Oral administration of medicines
** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or ora ...
(often called by the Russian name, "Uralsk"), where the country's only professional club Akzhaiyk is located. They presently compete in the Russian second tier division, the Russian Bandy Supreme League
Russian Bandy Supreme League or the Vysshaya Liga () is the second tier of Russian bandy, below Russian Bandy Super League.
In the 2016–17 season, 23 teams competed in three groups.
In the 2022/23 season, 22 teams competed in four groups. Th ...
.
Recently bandy has started to gain popularity again outside of Oral, most notably in Petropavl
Petropavl ( ; ) is a city on the Ishim River in northern Kazakhstan close to the border with Russia. It is the capital of the North Kazakhstan Region. Population: 218,956.
Petropavl is about from Kökşetau, northwest of the national cap ...
and Khromtau
Khromtau (, ''Hromtau'') is a town in Aktobe Region of Kazakhstan, the administrative center of Khromtau District. It was formed in 1967. Population:
Khromtau has important Chromium deposits, which are currently exploited in underground mine ...
. Those were for example the three Kazakh cities which had players in the team at the Youth-17, Youth Bandy World Championship for boys in 2016. The capital Astana
Astana is the capital city of Kazakhstan. With a population of 1,423,726 within the city limits, it is the second-largest in the country after Almaty, which had been the capital until 1997. The city lies on the banks of the Ishim (river), Ishim ...
has hosted national youth championships in rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
as well as championships in traditional eleven-a-side bandy.
In recent years the former capital Almaty
Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...
has hosted both the Asian Winter Games
The Asian Winter Games (AWG) is an international multi-sport event held every four years for members of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) featuring winter events. The Japanese Olympic Committee first suggested creating a winter version of the ...
(with bandy on the program) as well as the Bandy World Championship for men in which Kazakhstan finished 3rd. Plans are being made to reinvigorate the bandy section of the club Dynamo Almaty, who won the Soviet Championships in 1977 and 1990 as well as the European Cup
The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...
in 1978. Almaty is also the home of the headquarters of the Asian Bandy Federation. Since bandy began regaining popularity and acceptance, the state has begun supporting bandy. Medeu
The Medeu (, ''Medeu'') is an outdoor speed skating and bandy rink. It is located in a mountain valley ( Medeu Valley, or the valley of Malaya Almatinka River) on the south-eastern outskirts of Almaty, Kazakhstan. Medeu sits 1,691 metres above ...
in Almaty is the only arena with artificial ice. A second arena in Almaty was built for the World Championship 2012, but it was taken down afterwards. Stadion Yunost in Oral
The word oral may refer to:
Relating to the mouth
* Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid
**Oral administration of medicines
** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or ora ...
was supposed to get artificial ice for the 2017–18 season. It got delayed but in 2018 it was officially ready for use.
Mongolia
The national team took a silver medal at the 2011 Asian Winter Games
The 2011 Asian Winter Games (; ), also known as Astana-Almaty 2011 (), were a continental winter multi-sport event held from January 30 to February 6, 2011 in Astana and Almaty, Kazakhstan. It was the first time that Kazakhstan hosted such a larg ...
, which led to being chosen as the best Mongolian sport team of 2011. Mongolia was proud to win the bronze medal of the B division at the 2017 Bandy World Championship
2017 Bandy World Championship was the 37th Bandy World Championship and was held in Sweden. The games in Division A were played in Göransson Arena in Sandviken, 29 January to 5 February. The games of Division B were played in Slättbergshall ...
after which the President of Mongolia
The president of Mongolia is the executive head of state of Mongolia.Montsame NW Agency. ''Mongolina''. 2006, , p. 42 The current president is Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh.
Political parties with representation in the State Great Khural nominate ...
, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj
Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (; born 30 March 1963) is a Mongolian politician and journalist who served as President of Mongolia from 2009 to 2017. He previously served as prime minister in 1998 and again from 2004 to 2006.
Elbegdorj was one of the k ...
, held a reception for the team.
Netherlands
Bandy as an organized sport was introduced to the Netherlands in the 1890s by Pim Mulier
Willem Johan Herman Mulier, known as Pim Mulier (10 March 1865 – 12 April 1954) was one of the leading figures in the sporting history of the Netherlands.
He was a co-founder of the oldest Association football, football club still in existence ...
and the sport became popular. However, in the 1920s, the interest turned to ice hockey, but in contrast to other countries in central and western Europe, the sport has been continuously played in the Netherlands and since the 1970s, the country has become a member of FIB and games have been more formalised again. The national team started to compete at the WCS in 1991
It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...
. However, without a proper venue, only rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
is played within the country. The national governing body is the Bandy Bond Nederland.
Norway
Bandy as an organized sport was introduced to Norway in the 1910s. The Swedes
Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...
contributed largely and clubs sprang up around the capital of Kristiania (present day Oslo
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
). Oslo
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
, including neighbouring towns, is in the twenty-first century still the region where bandy enjoys most popularity in Norway.
In 1912 the Norwegians
Norwegians () are an ethnic group and nation native to Norway, where they form the vast majority of the population. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegians are descended from the Norsemen, Norse of the Early ...
played their first National Championship
A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...
, which was played annually up to 1940. During World War II, when Norway was occupied by Germany, illegal bandy was played in hidden places in forests, on ponds and lakes. In 1943, 1944 and 1945, illegal championships were held. In 1946 legal play resumed and still goes on in form of the Norwegian Bandy Premier League
The Norwegian Bandy Premier League is the top level of bandy in Norway. National bandy champions have been named yearly since 1912, but the league was only founded in 1932.
The league consists of eight teams. After the regular league, the leadin ...
(''Eliteserien''). After World War II the number of teams rose, as well as attendance which regularly were in the thousands, but mild winters in the 1970s and 1980s shrunk the league, and in 2003 only five clubs (teams) fought out the 1st division with low attendance numbers and little media coverage. As of 2021 there are 10 teams in the Norwegian Bandy Premier League
The Norwegian Bandy Premier League is the top level of bandy in Norway. National bandy champions have been named yearly since 1912, but the league was only founded in 1932.
The league consists of eight teams. After the regular league, the leadin ...
.
Norway's best result in the World Championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
is a second place in 1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...
.
Norwegian Championship
The Norwegian bandy champion is decided each year by a play-off among the best teams in the Norwegian Bandy Premier League. The first Norwegian bandy champions was decided in 1912 and the championship has been held almost every year since. Until 1928, the championship was played as 7-a-side bandy.
Russia
In Russia bandy is known as hockey with a ball or simply Russian hockey. A similar game became popular among the Russian nobility in the early 1700s, with the imperial court of Peter the Great
Peter I (, ;
– ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...
playing a predecessor of modern bandy on Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
's frozen Neva
The Neva ( , ; , ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it is the fourth- ...
river. Russians initially played this game using ordinary footwear with sticks made out of juniper wood, but it wasn't until later that ice skates were introduced. Bandy did not become popular among the masses throughout the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
until the second half of the 19th century. The predecessor of the current Russian Bandy Federation was founded in 1898. Bandy is considered a national sport
A national sport is a physical activity or sport that is culturally significant or deeply embedded in a nation, serving as a national symbol and an intrinsic element to a nation's identity and culture.
Several sovereign states and constituent ...
in Russia and is the only discipline to have official support of the Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...
.
Traditionally the Russians used a longer skate blade than other nations, giving them the advantage of skating faster. However, they would find it more difficult to turn quickly. A bandy skate has a longer blade than an ice hockey skate, and the "Russian skate" is even longer.
Though bandy was still played in the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
after the Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
, they did not partake in any international games for many decades. While agreements had previously been made to play friendlies against Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
in the late 1940s, these plans had not come to fruition. The bandy event at the 1952 Winter Olympics
The 1952 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VI Olympic Winter Games (; ) and commonly known as Oslo 1952, were a winter multi-sport event held from 14 to 25 February 1952 in Oslo, the capital of Norway.
Discussions about Oslo hosting ...
in Oslo, Norway, where men's bandy featured as a demonstration sport
A demonstration sport, or exhibition sport, is a sport which is played to promote it, rather than as part of standard medal competition. This occurs commonly during the Olympic Games but may also occur at other sporting events.
Demonstration sport ...
, was played without any Soviet team. However, the Soviets reconsidered their position following this competition.
When the Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
was formed in 1955, with the Soviet Union as one of its founding members, the Russians largely adopted the international rules of the game developed in England in the 19th century, with one notable exception. The other countries adopted the border which until then had only been used in Russia.
Since the 1950s, when the Soviet Union ended its isolation and started to take part in international sports events, the Soviet Union and then Russia (as its successor country in 1991) has consistently held a top position in the sport of bandy, both as a founding nation of the International Federation
This is a list of international sports federations, each of which serves as a non-governmental governing body for a given sport and administers its sport at a world level, most often crafting rules, promoting the sport to prospective spectator ...
in 1955, and fielding the most successful team in the Bandy World Championship, the premiere international competition for men, (when counting the previous Soviet Union team and Russia together).
The men's Russian professional bandy league is called the Russian Bandy Super League. The Russian Bandy Supreme League
Russian Bandy Supreme League or the Vysshaya Liga () is the second tier of Russian bandy, below Russian Bandy Super League.
In the 2016–17 season, 23 teams competed in three groups.
In the 2022/23 season, 22 teams competed in four groups. Th ...
is the second tier of men's Russian bandy, below the Russian Bandy Super League. In Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, the Elitserien (literally, the "Elite League") is the highest bandy league in the country for men, while Bandyallsvenskan is the second division. In Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
, the highest bandy league for men is the Bandyliiga
The Bandyliiga (; 'Bandy League') is the top level of men's bandy in Finland. The league was founded in 1908 as the Jääpallon Suomen mestaruus, SM-sarja ('Bandy Finnish Championship Series') and the present name has been used since the 1991– ...
.
In a similar fashion, Russia, along with Sweden, has emerged as one of the two dominant women's bandy nations internationally, regularly placing first or second at the premier international bandy competition for women, the Women's Bandy World Championship.
After the victory in the 2016 World Championship, the fourth in a row, President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
received four players of the national team, Head Coach
A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...
and Vice-President
A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...
of the Russian Bandy Federation Sergey Myaus, the Russian Bandy Federation as well as Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
President Boris Skrynnik in The Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall along with the K ...
. He talked, among other things, about the need to give more support to Russian bandy. It was the first time a head of state
A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "he head of state
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads
* He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English
* He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana)
* Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...
being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...
had accepted a meeting to talk about Russian bandy. Attending the meeting were also Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth policy Vitaly Mutko
Vitaly Leontiyevich Mutko (; born Viktor Leontiyevich Mutko; 8 December 1958) is a Russian politician who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia from 2016 to 2020.
From 2008 to 2016, he served as the Minister of Sport of Russia.
Biogra ...
and presidential adviser Igor Levitin. The month after, Igor Levitin held a follow-up meeting.
Russian Championship
The men's Russian professional bandy league is called the Russian Bandy Super League. The Russian Bandy Supreme League
Russian Bandy Supreme League or the Vysshaya Liga () is the second tier of Russian bandy, below Russian Bandy Super League.
In the 2016–17 season, 23 teams competed in three groups.
In the 2022/23 season, 22 teams competed in four groups. Th ...
is the second tier of men's Russian bandy, below the Russian Bandy Super League.
The Russian Bandy Super League is the top tier of the Russian bandy league system. It is professional and played every year. The winner in the final becomes Russian champion. It is considered a continuation of the Soviet Union championship, which was played annually until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russian Cup
The Russian Cup has been played annually most years since 1937, originally called the Soviet Cup.
Sweden
Bandy as an organized sport was introduced to Sweden in 1895. The Swedish royal family, noblemen and diplomats were among the first players. While the original inspiration mainly came from England, there also were early exchanges with Germany and Russia. Bandy was taken up as one of the sports at the international Nordic Games
The Nordic Games were the first international multi-sport event that focused primarily on winter sports, and were held at varying intervals between 1901 and 1926. It was organized by Sweden's Swedish Central Association for the Promotion of ...
held in Sweden semi-annually from 1901. Swedish championships for men have been played annually since 1907 and Sweden was the first country to have an annual bandy league.
In the 1920s students played the game, then it spread across the country and became a largely middle-class sport. The games could attract huge crowds of spectators in those days. After Slottsbrons IF won the Swedish championship in 1934 it became popular amongst workers in many smaller industrial towns and villages. Where there was a bandy club the local factory corporation also usually sponsored the club to mutual benefit as a successful team led to good PR for the company. Bandy remains the main sport in many of these places.
In the mid-20th Century, bandy was the most popular spectator sport in Sweden, drawing huge crowds for most events and having bigger audiencess than football or ice hockey. While not having the same numbers now, bandy is inceasing the number of spectators in the 2020s, in contrast to many other sports.
Bandy in Sweden is famous for its "culture" where both playing bandy and being a spectator requires great fortitude and dedication. A "" is the classic accessory for spectating and is typically made of brown leather, well worn, and contains a warm drink in a thermos and/or a bottle of liquor. Bandy is most often played at outdoor arenas during winter time, so the need for spectators to carry flasks or thermoses of 'warming' liquid like glögg
Glögg, gløgg or glögi is a spiced, often Alcoholic drink, alcoholic, mulled wine, or alcoholic spirit, spirit of Swedish origin. It is a traditional Swedish drink during winter, especially around Christmas.
History
In the Nordic countries, ...
is a natural effect. With the sport moving indoors in recent decades and the arenas urging for non-alcoholic policies for the audiences, this tradition has partly changed, though not without opposition.
A notable tradition is " annandagsbandy", bandy games played on Saint Stephen's Day
Saint Stephen's Day, also called the Feast of Saint Stephen, is a Christian saint's day to commemorate Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr or protomartyr, celebrated on 26 December in Western Christianity and 27 December in Eastern Ch ...
(''annandagen'' = ’the second day f Christmas
F, or f, is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and many modern alphabets influenced by it, including the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of all other modern western European languages. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounc ...
��), which for many Swedes
Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...
is an important Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
season tradition and always draws bigger crowds than usual. Games traditionally begin at 1:15 pm.
Swedish Championship
In Sweden, the Elitserien (literally, the "Elite League") is the highest bandy league in the country for men, while Bandyallsvenskan is the second division. The Elite League is the top tier of Swedish bandy and is fully professional. At the end of the season, a play-off is made to make out the two teams playing the final match for the Swedish Championship. The Final is played every year on the third Saturday of March. From 1991 to 2012, it was played at Studenternas Idrottsplats in Uppsala
Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Loc ...
, often drawing crowds in excess of 20,000. One reason the play-off match was set in Uppsala is because of IFK Uppsala's success at the beginning of the 20th century. IFK Uppsala won 11 titles in the Swedish Championships between 1907 and 1920, which made them the most successful bandy club in the entire country (now, however, the record is held by Västerås SK). A contributing factor was also the poor quality of the ice at Söderstadion, where the finals were held from 1967 to 1989.
In 2013 and 2014 the final was played indoors in Friends Arena
Nationalarenan, known as Strawberry Arena since 2024 for sponsorship reasons, is a retractable roof multi-purpose stadium in Stockholm, Sweden. Located next to the lake Råstasjön in Solna, just north of the City Centre, it is the largest stadi ...
, the national stadium for football in Solna
Solna ( or , ), also known as Solna Municipality, is a municipality in central Stockholm County, Sweden, located just north of Stockholm City Centre. Its seat is located in the town of Solna, which is a part of the Stockholm urban area. Solna i ...
, Stockholm, with a retractable roof and a capacity of 50,000. The first final at Friends Arena in 2013 drew a record crowd of 38,474 when Hammarby IF Bandy
Hammarby IF Bandyförening is a Sweden, Swedish bandy club from Södermalm, Stockholm, a section of the sports club Hammarby IF.
Hammarby IF was founded under its present name in 1897 and has been playing bandy since 1905. The club currently ...
, after ending up in second place in six finals during the 2000s, won their second title. Due to declining attendance from 2015 through 2017 Tele2 Arena
3Arena, formerly the Stockholmsarenan (and Tele2 Arena), is a retractable roof multi-purpose arena in Stockholm Globe City, Johanneshov, just south of Stockholm City Centre, Sweden. It is used mostly for concerts and Association football, footbal ...
in southern Stockholm was chosen as a new venue. However, the new indoor venue failed to attract much more than half of the total capacity. In May 2017 it was announced that the finals will again be held at Studenternas IP in Uppsala from 2018 through at least 2021.
Svenska Cupen (The Swedish Cup)
The ''Svenska Cupen'' (), ''Svenska Cupen i bandy'', takes place exclusively in Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
. It is a single-elimination tournament
A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...
competition in Swedish bandy and the second-most prominent bandy competition which is open only to domestic Swedish teams, after the national championship. Its inaugural year was 2005
2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...
. The first women's competition was played in 2019.
Switzerland
In the late nineteenth and early 20th century, Switzerland had become a popular place for winter vacations and people went there from all over Europe. Winter sports like skiing, sledding and bandy was played in Geneva and other towns. Students from Oxford and Cambridge went to Switzerland to play each other – the predecessor of the recurring Ice Hockey Varsity Match was a bandy match played in St. Moritz
St. Moritz ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is a high Alpine resort town in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about above sea level. It is Upper Engadine's major town and a municipality in the administrative region of Maloja in the Swiss ...
in 1885. This popularity for Swiss venues of winter sport may have been a reason, the European Championship was held there in 1913.
Bandy has mainly been played as a recreational sport in Switzerland in the 2000s and 2010s. A Swiss men's national team was finally started up in 2017 and a Swiss women's national team made its international début in the 2018 Women's Bandy World Championship.
Ukraine
Bandy was played in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union. After independence in 1991, it took some years before organized bandy formed again, but Ukrainian champions have been named annually since 2012.
United Kingdom
The first recorded games of what may be considered bandy on ice took place in The Fens
The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system o ...
during the great frost of 1813–1814, although it is probable that the game had already been played there in the previous century. Bury Fen Bandy Club from Bluntisham-cum-Earith, near St Ives, was the most successful team, said to have remained unbeaten for a hundred years until the winter of 1890–1891. Charles Goodman Tebbutt of the Bury Fen Bandy Club was responsible for the first published rules of bandy in 1882, and also for introducing the game into the Netherlands and Sweden, as well as elsewhere in England where it became popular with cricket, rowing, and hockey clubs. Tebbutt's homemade bandy stick can be seen in the Norris Museum in St Ives.
The first Ice Hockey Varsity Matches between Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
and Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
were played to bandy rules, even if it was called hockey on the ice at the time.
It is sometimes claimed that a national team for England won the European Bandy Championships in 1913, but that tournament likely never took place. While bandy is often thought to have been a popular sport in England in the decades around 1900, few records seem to have been kept.
A statue of a bandy player, designed by Peter Baker, was erected at the village pond of Earith to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first documented game in 2013.
In March 2004, Norwegian ex-player Edgar Malman invited two big clubs to play a rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
exhibition game in Streatham
Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
Streatham was in Surrey ...
, London. Russian Champions and World Cup Winner Vodnik met Swedish Champions Edsbyns IF in a match that ended 10–10. In 2010 England became a Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
member. The national federation is based in Cambridgeshire, the historical heartland.
The England Bandy Federation, was set up on 2 January 2017 at a meeting held in the historic old skaters public house, the Lamb and Flag in Welney
Welney is a village and civil parish in the Fens of England and the county of Norfolk. The village is about south-west of the town of Downham Market, south of the town of King's Lynn and west of the city of Norwich. The county boundary with ...
in Norfolk
Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
, England, replacing the Bandy Federation of England which had been founded in 2010 but had had dwindling activity. In September 2017, the federation decided to widen its territory to all of the United Kingdom and changed its name to Great Britain Bandy Association. Great Britain entered a national team in the 2019 World Championships Group B in January and undefeated up to the final, won the silver medal in their final match against Estonia. They were set to return to the 2020 World Championships, but were refused visas to Russia. Since then they have not participated. However, the comeback will come in 2025.
In 2022, Great Britain premiered its national women's bandy team at the 2022 Women's Bandy World Championship
file:Women's Bandy World Championship 2022.png, The 2022 tournament was originally to be held in Stockholm, and this was the logo created for it.
The 2022 Women's Bandy World Championship was an international bandy tournament for women and the 11t ...
.
United States
Bandy in its original, informal manner disappeared from the North American continent entirely once it and elements from the early game had become absorbed into a new sport of ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
. While ice hockey was growing and organizing in the United States, bandy was doing the same, but only in Europe and Scandinavia. It would not arrive in its organized format in the United States until the 1970s, almost a century after its initial development.
Bandy has been played in the United States since around the 1970s, after its promotion by Russians, Swedes and Finns in an exchange with softball
Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...
, a sport which was promoted by Americans during the same time in the Soviet Union, Sweden and Finland. A key-person in the establishment of the sport in America was Bob Kojetin of Minnesota Softball. The sport is centered in Minnesota, with very few teams based elsewhere. The United States national bandy team has participated in the Bandy World Championships since 1985 and is also regularly playing friendly matches against Canada. The leading organization for bandy in the US is USA Bandy. The US has a men's national bandy team and a women's national bandy team.
The first bandy game in the US was played in December 1979 at the Lewis Park Bandy Rink in Edina
EDINA is a centre for digital expertise, based at the University of Edinburgh as a division of the Information Services Group.
Services
EDINA front and back ends, front-end services (those accessed directly by the user) are available free at ...
, Minnesota. It was a friendly game between the Swedish junior national team and Swedish club team Brobergs IF.
United States bandy championships have been played annually since the early 1980s, but the sport is not widely covered by American sports media. The championship trophy is called the Gunnar Cup, named after Gunnar Fast, a Swedish army captain who helped introduce bandy to the United States around 1980.
Playing surfaces
While North American ice hockey rinks can be used for playing the bandy variant of rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
, places where the traditional game of bandy can be played require a larger sized playing surface, a bandy field
A bandy field or bandy rink is a large ice rink used for playing the team winter sport of bandy. Being about the size of a football pitch, it is substantially larger than an ice hockey rink.
History
Originally, bandy was played on naturally froz ...
, and are almost non-existent in North America. Minnesota
Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
is home to the only regulation sized bandy "rink" in North America, the Guidant John Rose Minnesota Oval, commonly referred to as, "The Oval", and is also the largest outdoor refrigerated skating rink in North America. The rink is 10,219 square meters with more than 800 tons of refrigeration and 135 km of pipes underneath the ice. The ice can be maintained in temperatures up to +10 degrees Celsius. The Oval can hold up to 300 spectators and has hosted World Cup Speedskating, the 2016 Women's Bandy World Championship, and Aggressive Skating/Biking competitions. The Oval is used mostly for inline hockey
Inline hockey or roller hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The sport is a v ...
during the summer.
National bandy federations
The following associations are the governing bodies for bandy in different countries and are member organizations of the Federation of International Bandy
The Federation of International Bandy (FIB; , , ) is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Karlstad Municipality, Sweden.
History
Bandy as known tod ...
.
* Belarus – Беларуская федэрацыя хакея з мячaм (Belarusian Bandy Federation)
* Canada – Canada Bandy
* People's Republic of China – China Bandy Federation
* Colombia – Colombia Federation of Skating Sports
* Czech Republic – Czech Association of Bandy
Czech Association of Bandy () is the governing body for bandy and rink bandy in the Czech Republic. The association was founded in 2013 and became a member of the Federation of International Bandy in 2014.
The Czech Republic national bandy team ...
* Estonia – Eesti Jääpalliliit (Estonian Bandy Association)
* Finland – Finland's Bandy Association
* Germany – German Bandy Federation
* Hungary – Hungarian Bandy Federation
* India – Bandy Federation of India
The Bandy Association of India governs bandy in India. Its headquarters are in Aurangabad. Bandy, a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal, is generally played in northern Ind ...
* Italy – Federazione Italiana Bandy
* Japan – Japan Bandy Federation
* Kazakhstan – Kazakhstan Bandy Federation
* Kyrgyzstan – Bandy Federation of Kyrgyzstan
* Latvia – Latvijas Bendija Federācija
* Mongolia – Bandy Federation of Mongolia
* Netherlands – Bandy Bond Nederland.
* Norway – Norges Bandyforbund
* Russia – Федерация хоккея с мячом России (Russian Bandy Federation)
* Somalia – Somali National Bandy Association
* Sweden – Svenska Bandyförbundet
* Switzerland – Federation of Swiss Bandy
* Ukraine – Українськa Федерація хокею з м'ячем та рінк-бенді (Ukrainian Bandy and Rink bandy Federation)
* United Kingdom – Great Britain Bandy Association
* United States – American Bandy Association
See also
* Bandy World Championship
* Women's Bandy World Championship
* Rink bandy
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pi ...
* Bando
Bando (, ) is a defensive unarmed martial art from Myanmar. Bando is sometimes mistakenly used as a generic word for all Burmese martial arts, but it is only one martial art; Burmese fighting systems collectively are referred to as ''Thaing (bu ...
* Rinkball
Rinkball is a winter team sport played on ice with ice skates and is most popular in Finland, where it is known as ''kaukalopallo''. This ball sport originated in Sweden in the 1960s and from there landed in Finland in the 1970s.
The objective ...
* Pond hockey
Pond hockey is a form of ice hockey similar in its object and appearance to traditional ice hockey, but simplified and designed to be played on part of a natural frozen body of water. The hockey rink, rink is 50 to 80 percent the size of a stan ...
* Ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...
* Ringette
Ringette is a winter team sport played on an ice rink using ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice surfaces. While the sport was originally created exclusively for female c ...
References
Bibliography
* The Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire Hedley Park and Aflalo, F.G. ''Bandy'' (includes definition and rules), pp. 71–72, 1897. Published by Lawrence & Bullen, Ltd., 16 Henrietta St., Covent Garden, London.
External links
* – history and rules of bandy
Federation of International Bandy
Bandysidan links
– one of the most extensive link directories about bandy
* ttp://www.goalwire.com/en/statistics_and_tables/bandy/ Goalwire statistics for bandy
*
{{Authority control
Ball games
Former Winter Olympic sports
Ice skating sports
Sports originating in England
Sports originating in Russia
Team sports
Stick sports
Variations of hockey
1875 introductions