Bandy will be showcased at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. Source: AFP / East News

Almost all Bandy World Championships in the top divisionfollow approximately the same pattern. The routine of the preliminary stage isfollowed by the semi-finals, and the decisive match usually features Russia andSweden. Only extremely rarely does Finland intrude on the contest between thissport’s two leading countries. The elite group also includes Kazakhstan, Norwayand Belarus. The leaders of the second division are the U.S. and Canada.

Several years ago, mainly thanks to the efforts of Russiansports officials, bandy became an IOC-recognized sport and a candidate forinclusion in the Winter Olympics program. Nevertheless, despite the fact thatbandy will be a demonstration sport at the 2014 Sochi Games, the chances of itbeing fully recognized as an Olympic sport are very slim.

In its drive to meet the IOC’s requirements that a sport beplayed in many countries, the Federation of International Bandy (FIB) includescountries that have only declared their interest in the development of thisgame.

India, Afghanistan, Australia, Armenia, Argentina, for example, do nothave any big ice-rinks on which bandy could even be played, nor do they havebandy teams that actually exist. Nevertheless, these states are full-fledgedmembers of the FIB.

India, for example, has been part of the FIB for 11 years,but has never once played in a World Championship. On the other hand, theJapanese made their debut in 2012, and Ukraine played in the World Championshipfor the first time in 2013.

A game of bandy is played in two halves of 45 minutes each,on ice rinks whose dimensions are identical to those of a soccer field. Eachteam has a goalkeeper and 10 outfield players; substitutions are allowed. Theaim of game is to get the ball (6.6 centimeters in diameter and weighingapproximately 2 ounces) into the other team’s goal (11.5 feet wide and 7 feethigh) as many times as possible, using hooked sticks.

The goalkeeper playswithout a stick, catching the ball with his gloves and kicking it away, withhis legs protected by pads. A 40-foot penalty shot is awarded for foulscommitted in the penalty area: this is similar to the 36-foot penalty kick insoccer.

The balls used to be orange in color, but then they werechanged to pink in order to meet the needs of television. Bandy is really not atelevision game. It is difficult to make out the little ball on the screen;when there are fast passes, not all spectators or viewers can see it, whetherthey are at the rink or watching on a television screen.

Bandy games are very often played in extreme conditions andsevere cold — especially in Russia. At the 1999 World Championship inArkhangelsk, the temperature was around minus 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and somegames had to be played in three periods of 30 minutes each,

In Russia, bandy is considered a national sport and isknown as “Russian ice hockey,” although it started in Britain at the end of the19^th century. It arrived in Russia in 1898, and the first SovietChampionship took place in 1928.

The first official international tournament was theEuropean Championship in 1913, in which teams from Austria, England, Belgium,Germany, Italy, Holland, France and Switzerland played; the English team won.World War I then put the brakes on the international development of bandy.

The World Championships started in1957. The Soviet and Russian teams have taken “gold” 21 times; Sweden has 11titles and Finland won for the first and only time in 2004. For a long timeonly four teams took part in the championship: Russia, Sweden, Finland andNorway; they were joined by the United States in the mid-1980s. After thecollapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan became one of the leading teams,fielding mainly Russian players.

Bandy was very popular in the Soviet Union. Between 20,000and 50,000 spectators would go to championship matches. Going to games alsoinvolved drinking copious amounts of strong alcoholic drinks — otherwise itwould be hard to hold out for long on the ice. Consumption of alcohol is nowbanned at sporting events in Russia, and, consequently, there has been asignificant drop in attendance at matches.

Onlyone team in Russia plays on a covered rink. Dynamo Moscow plays at theKrylatskoye sports complex; even still, only a few hundred spectators come tothe matches. Many people in Russia believe that indoor bandy is just not thesame as the open-air game.

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