Hocky

Bandy: The Other Ice Hockey

The sound of blades grinding the ice of gamers skating at excessive speeds, blistering 100+ MPH slap pictures, stunning end-to-end rushes with tape-to-tape passes, and sprawling kick saves by goaltenders are main elements of the good recreation of bandy.

Most individuals: “Wait what? You mean hockey.”

No, I imply bandy.

Bandy performed on the Asian Winter Games (A.Burgermeister)

Bandy is an extremely skillful and fast-paced recreation performed on an especially giant ice rink primarily in northern Europe and Russia. To somebody who is aware of little about hockey, bandy can simply be mistaken for it and is even referred to as hockey in some distant locales in Finland and Sweden. Bandy has additionally been coined “Russian Hockey” as early variations of the sport have been performed in northern areas of Russia. Although extraordinarily common abroad, bandy is usually neglected or by no means even heard of by many North American sports activities aficionados as a result of extra extensively performed recreation of ice hockey.

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However, each hockey fan and participant ought to verify this recreation out not less than as soon as of their lifetime. My bucket checklist now consists of taking part in a pickup recreation of bandy after watching knowledgeable recreation stay whereas on a visit in Sweden.

Bandy Players (Anemone Nemorosa)
Bandy gamers pursuing a bandy ball (Anemone Nemorosa)

Bandy and ice hockey share widespread historic ancestry. These two video games diverged into two distinct sports activities all through the nineteenth century with ice hockey growing in Canada and bandy formalizing in England.

Late within the nineteenth century, English soccer was quickly rising in recognition in Britain, with new golf equipment forming yearly. Quite a few these golf equipment determined to start out taking part in the informal winter sport of bandy to remain conditioned and have slightly enjoyable. As extra groups started competing with one another, the necessity for common guidelines grew to become obvious.


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Since a majority of the bandy groups have been primarily English soccer golf equipment, the formalized Bandy guidelines have been closely influenced by the foundations of English soccer. The dimension of the rink, also called the pitch, is equal to the dimensions of a soccer subject which is roughly 350 ft lengthy by about 180 ft large. There are shortened boards that encompass the rink, however they transcend the out-of-bounds line, so the ball (they don’t use a puck) can exit of bounds similar to in soccer. Also like soccer, the sport time is 90 minutes lengthy and is damaged into 45-minute halves.

Bandy Pitch (Suede)
Bandy Rink (aka Pitch) Dimensions (Suede)

Since bandy was based mostly on English soccer guidelines, the positions are the identical as soccer, with one goalie and 10 skaters consisting of defenders, midfielders, and forwards. Generally, there are three or 4 backup gamers on the bench, who not like in soccer and much like hockey, can substitute often all through the sport to provide beginning gamers relaxation. All skaters use bandy sticks, that are shorter than hockey sticks in each the peak of the stick (now not than 127 centimeters or 50 inches) and within the size of the blade (no wider than 7 centimeters or 2.8 inches). Bandy, a Welsh word meaning “a curved stick,” doesn’t enable flat blades as sticks are crooked and supplied in 5 angles, from a slight bend to a big bend.

Since there are not any blue strains, the offsides rule is—as soon as once more—much like soccer. That means an attacking participant can’t skate behind the final opposing defender (not together with the goalie) until they’re carrying the ball. If a cross is directed in the direction of that participant, they should be both in entrance of or parallel to the final defender when the ball leaves the stick of the attacking participant’s teammate so as to be onside. This makes breakaways close to inconceivable and places better emphasis on dangling and passing to get across the opposition.

One main distinction to North American ice hockey is bandy’s emphasis on velocity quite than physicality. Body checking and preventing will not be allowed and each will lead to penalties being referred to as. If the physicality of the sport is the only real purpose why you want hockey, bandy is most definitely not the game for you. Players could make shoulder-to-shoulder contact when battling for possession or to push the opposition off the ball, however something greater than aggressive contact shall be whistled. Also, a lot to the dismay of John Tortorella, skaters will not be allowed to drop to the ice to dam pictures. They can, nevertheless, make a wall of defenders much like soccer in entrance of the online throughout a “free stroke,” the place the opposing forwards are given a free shot on purpose on account of some sort of infraction.

Bandy Goalie (Arild Vågen)
Bandy Goalie (Arild Vågen)

A “corner stroke” is awarded if the ball is deflected behind the purpose line by a defender or goalkeeper. This is sort of much like subject hockey, the place a ahead shoots the ball from the nook of the rink to their teammates surrounding the round penalty space, who will often shoot a one-timer on purpose for a scoring likelihood. This may be seen within the first spotlight video at 1:30 under.

Another important distinction to hockey is that the goalie doesn’t use a stick, however as an alternative wears two catching gloves much like a soccer goalie glove, so as to cease the ball from being propelled right into a internet fairly bigger than hockey’s 6-foot by 4-foot purpose. Bandy goalies should block pictures from going into an 11-foot by 7-foot internet and, additionally much like soccer, they’re chargeable for throwing the ball again into play in the event that they make a save or an opposing ahead shoots the ball out of bounds behind the purpose line.

World Bandy Championship Highlights:

Team USA Montage:

The USA staff is made up primarily of former school {and professional} hockey gamers.

The following clip is a very cool newbie video of bandy being performed at a public outside rink. Although you may’t actually observe the play, this clip captures the purity of bandy for me, as there are not any announcers speaking or music blaring over the pure ambiance of the sport. Watching and listening to the sounds of their skates on the ice on this quaint outside setting actually exhibits the purity of this sport.

Growing The Game of Bandy

Throughout the twentieth century bandy was hampered from increasing partly as a result of technological difficulties of sustaining an ice floor as giant as a soccer subject, and largely as a result of quick enlargement of ice hockey into Europe throughout the first few a long time of the century. Numerous European groups ready for the 1920 Olympic hockey event by taking part in bandy, solely to reach seeing they wanted to play below the Canadian ice hockey guidelines, which that they had by no means seen earlier than. This rapidly transformed a overwhelming majority of bandy gamers into hockey gamers, not as a result of ice hockey was essentially higher than bandy, however for the only real purpose that hockey was the game they wanted to play so as to compete within the Olympics. Because of this alteration, bandy was relegated right into a a lot smaller northern area of interest sport. In truth, the bandy affect and background of lots of these early European hockey gamers is a big purpose why hockey in Europe is performed on a bigger ice floor and tends to be much less bodily.

Now, these organizations are trying to develop the sport of Bandy:

World Bandy
USA Bandy
Canada Bandy

The Federation of International Bandy (FIB) and its members are pushing arduous for the game to be included within the Winter Olympics. By putting this recreation on the worldwide stage, it’s going to make recruiting new youth gamers, grownup gamers, and others who’re involved in contributing to the sport not directly (refereeing, youth teaching, and many others.) a lot simpler transferring ahead. Far fewer youngsters can be taking part in hockey with out the attract of the NHL and the Stanley Cup. Creating the dream of an Olympic bandy gold medal may assist draw elevated consciousness and potential curiosity in collaborating within the sport. Although the FIB has 29 member nations, a overwhelming majority are just like the United States and Canada, which have only a few gamers collaborating within the recreation and it stays comparatively unknown to most people of their respective nations.

* initially written in May 2013


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