Bandy And The Bandy World Championships In Stockholm
Bandy, a sport of skill, a sport of madmen, a sport of Kings... This year the finest players in the world will be clashing for the glory that is the Bandy World Championship down the street at Zinkensdamm. Yes, Sweden has been chosen to host the Bandy WC...again. So, without further ado, allow me to give you a rundown on what this whole Bandy-ma-bob is.
All over the barren, snow covered, and icy wastes of northern Europe they play a sport that is so amazing that it can only be called "Bandy". (From the Welsh bando. Meaning a game like modern bandy played by coal miners.) The bandy of today is of 19th century English descent, the official rules being set down in 1891. It was, if you can believe, quite popular in England at one time, England even won the first ever European Championships in 1913. But, time has passed, and the Welsh and English are no longer the big bando fans they once were.
Today bandy is played predominantly in Scandinavia, Russia, and places that used to be Russia. However, bandy is also played in some less than likely countries as you will see in the following list. The 15 official members of the Federation of International Innebandy (formed in 1955) are; Russia, the United States, Canada, Belorussia, the Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Kirgizistan, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Mongolia, Italy and India. (The last two are not full members yet.)
The first thing you need to know about bandy is that it is played on an ice surface the size of a football field. For this reason the majority of "rinks" are built outside, however there are indoor bandy "rinks".
The rules to bandy are quite similar to soccer/football. Each team is composed of 11 players (10 field players and a goalie) and the game is played in 2 halves of 45 minutes each with additional (injury time) minutes added based on the referees judgement of unnatural breaks in the game. One acception to the game time is based on temperature. If it is extremely cold outside, say -20 degrees (in 1999 the World Championships in Archangel were played in temperatures close to -50 celsius), the referee can make the decision to separate the game into 3 periods of 30 minutes so that the players have more time to keep warm. The referee can also call for 5 to 15 minute stoppages whenever he feels that everyone needs a chance to warm up a bit. A similar judgment can be made in the case of heavy snowfall.
When you first see bandy you'll obviously want to make the comparison to that of ice hockey combined with field hockey. Game play looks a lot like a cross between the two. However there are some major differences. For one the goalie does not have a stick. (Which I find very weird. Being a bandy goalie must come from being the one kid on your block who didn't have a stick.) Also, like in soccer/football, the goaltender can catch the ball and throw it, he cannot however pick up a ball that has been intentionally passed to him by his own teammates. Field players are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands, or heads. Offsides is called identical to that of soccer/football, as are corners, penalty shots, yellow and red cards, as well as "throw-ins", which in this case are put into play using your stick.
One major exception to the soccer/football comparison is that bandy includes penalties similar to that of ice hockey where players are sent off for periods of time, these include a five minute (white card) penalty and a ten minute (blue card) penalty depending on how badly the player has disgraced themselves in terms of sportsmanlike conduct.
The ball used in bandy is bright orange, for obvious reasons. (If it's not obvious to you, it is so that the referees and the players can see it.) It is slightly smaller than a tennis ball, about 6 cm across. The sticks used are closer in nature to field hockey sticks than to ice hockey sticks and they are not allowed to contain any hint of a curve. The goals are 2.1 meters high and 3.5 meters wide. Bandy scoring is all over the board, typical games can end 6-4, but it is not uncommon with teams scoring 20+ goals. (As in yesterday's match where Russia bear Kazakhstan 21-3.)
Now, back to the World Championships here in Stockholm. Since bandy is not an Olympic sport, although it should be if curling and ice-dancing are, the World Championships are seen as the premiere venue for bandy. (Bandy was actually a demonstration sport at the Olympics held in Oslo in 1952.) The Bandy WC has been held since 1957, in 1961 they changed the format to every other year, and since 2003 it has been held every year. Like most winter sports it has been dominated by Russia and the former Soviet Union. (The have won 16, Sweden has one 8, and Finland has won 1.)
This year there are 6 teams in the A division of the World Championships; Norway, Russia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Belorussia, and Sweden. In the B division is the rest of the pack; Mongolia, Estonia, Hungary, Canada, Kirgizistan, the Netherlands, and the United States. The games are being held in 3 different locations in Sweden, with the finals being held Sunday the 2nd in Stockholm. Tickets are available for all the games still, prices vary, but are about 140SEK for regular entrance and 80SEK for slacker pov students.
I urge you, if you have nothing better to do, to go and check this out. It is quite a spectacle. Pack a thermos with your hot beverage of choice and go on over to Zinkensdamm IP and have a gander. After reading this you should be able to impress your friends with your vast knowledge of bandy and you might actually understand what's going on.
K. Panda
Links that helped make me seem like I knew what I was on about:
Wikipedia Definition of Bandy
Per G. Olsson's Concise History of Bandy
Official Bandy World Championships 2006 Website
Federation of International Bandy Offficial Site
You can watch replays and highlights of Sweden's games so far here on SVT's homepage.
