Bandy, sometimes known as “winter football,” combines elements of soccer (association football) and ice
hockey. Rules and tactics are similar to those of soccer,
but the game is played on ice, and the skating players
use wooden sticks, as in ice hockey, to strike and control a small ball. Organized and competitive bandy
originated in England in the late 19th century; the
modern game is more popular in Scandinavia, Russia,
and the Baltics. World championship bandy competition is administered by the International Bandy Federation, which was established in 1955. Bandy was played
as a demonstration sport at the 1952 Oslo Olympics,
but it has not achieved the same level of popularity as
its closest rival, ice hockey.
History
Early references to “bandy” may designate a variety of
games, some of which bear little resemblance to the
modern sport. This is because the English word
“bandy”originally meant simply to toss a ball back and
forth and referred to no particular game. A game resembling modern bandy was played in England as
early as the 12th century. Also, a French bandy-like
game was being played on the other side of the channel. Whether these games were called bandy is uncertain: a later source, from the 15th century, refers to
“bandy-ball,” but has the players using straight sticks.
Games resembling modern bandy have also been
known as bandy-ball or bandy-cad—and sometimes
as cambuca, hurley, or shinty. Playing on natural ice or
frozen fields, teamed contestants fought to control either a flat puck-like object or a ball. This may explain
why the game never developed much in England: the
unreliability of natural icing during English winters
precluded a predictable competitive calendar.
A version of the game, known as “shinny,” was popular in America, from New England to Virginia, during
the latter half of the 18th century and was known for
violence and general lack of discipline. Shinny was particularly popular on early college campuses until it was
banned at Princeton in 1787 because of the mayhem
that generally accompanied it and it was heavily regulated at other schools.
A National Bandy Association was formed in England in 1891, and the first international match was
played the same year between the English Bury Fen
team and a Dutch team from Haarlem. Bandy was
started in Sweden in 1894. Swedish bandy grew
quickly, with almost 200 local bandy associations by
1926 and 445 by 1990. Organized bandy came to Russia in 1898, where it quickly became popular. Bandy
was organized in Norway by 1903 and in Finland by
1908. The sport was played for a time in Denmark,
Switzerland, and Austria, but it did not thrive and has
now been all but abandoned.
The Swedes and the Russians are credited with developing bandy as a sophisticated and competitive
sport. In Russia, bandy has never achieved the popularity of soccer (association football), but matches
drew crowds of thousands during World War II, and the
sport still retains loyal fans.
Rules and Play
In modern bandy, each team has 11 players, including
the goalkeeper. All players wear ice skates, and all but
the goalkeeper hold crooked sticks. The cork or plastic
ball is usually red and always brightly colored.
The game is played in two 45-minute periods and
teams trade after the first period. Tie scores are acceptable, except when championships are at stake, in which
case two 15-minute periods are added, followed by
“sudden death” if the game is still tied.
Dangerous play, defined as hitting or body-blocking
with the stick, is forbidden. The stick may not be raised
above shoulder height, be used to strike another
player’s stick, or to interfere with any player who does
not control the ball. Such rules are apparently well observed; incidence of injury is about half that encountered in ice hockey.
As a hybrid of two extremely popular sports, soccer
and hockey, bandy seems unlikely to become more
widespread. Its survival for at least 800 years, though,
suggests equally that it will retain a modest following
indefinitely.
—ALAN TREVITHICK
Bibliography: Aspin, Jehoshaphat. (1925) A Picture of the
Manners, Customs, Sports and Pastimes of the Inhabitants
of England. London: J. Harris. Edelman, Robert. (1993) Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR. New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gomme, Alice
Bertha.(1898) The Traditional Games of England, Scotland,
and Ireland. London: David Nutt. Harste, Ann K. (1990)
“Soccer on Ice.” The Physician and Sports Medicine 18 (November): 32. Strutt, Joseph. (1876) The Sports and Pastimes
of the People of England. London: Chatto and Windus.