 Swedish Championship, Women's final, 2015 | |
| Highest governing body | Federation of International Bandy (FIB) |
|---|---|
| Nicknames | Winter football[1] |
| First played | 1882, England, UK |
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | Limited (Shouldering allowed but body checking illegal) |
| Team members | 11 field players |
| Mixed-sex | No, separate competitions |
| Type | |
| Equipment | |
| Venue |
|
| Presence | |
| Olympic | - Demonstration 1952 - (recognized as a sport by the IOC in 2001) |
| Paralympic | No |
| World Games | No |
Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.[2][3]
The playing surface, called a bandy field or bandy rink, is a sheet of ice which measures 90–110 metres by 45–65 metres, about the size of a football pitch. The field is considerably larger than the ice rinks commonly used for ice hockey.
The sport has a common background with association football, ice hockey, shinty, and field hockey. Bandy's origins are debatable, but its first rules were organised and published in England in 1882.
Internationally, bandy's strongest nations in both men's and women's competitions have long been Sweden and Russia; both countries have established professional men's bandy leagues. In Russia, it is estimated that more than one million people play bandy.[4] The sport also has organised league play and fans in other countries, including Finland, Norway, and Kazakhstan. The premier international bandy competition for men is the Bandy World Championship and for women it is the Women's Bandy World Championship.
Organised bandy started in the late nineteenth century, but 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 (FIB) which formed in February 1955. In 2001, bandy was recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).[5] Both traditional eleven-a-side bandy and rink bandy (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,[6][7][8] but it is not recorded how many of these participants are male and how many are female.
- ^ Arlott, John, ed. (1975). "Bandy". The Oxford Companion to Sports & Games. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-211538-6.
- ^ "Edsbyn Sandviken SM – Final in Upssala". YouTube. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Ninhwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Klein, Jeff Z. (28 January 2010). "It's Not Hockey, It's Bandy". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
- ^ Max Winters (28 February 2017). "Russian Bandy Federation to act after teams score 20 own goals in one match". Inside the games.
- ^ "Bandy versus the 50 Olympic Winter Games Disciplines". 4 December 2015. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015.
- ^ "Bandy destined for the Olympic Winter Games!". Federation of International Bandy. 21 October 2016. Archived from the original on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
- ^ Bandyportföljen magazine, no. 4 2017/18, pp. 12-13