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.
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 at present are 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. 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.
From the 1890s until 1955, there was no established international governing body for bandy. 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). 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, but it is not recorded how many of these participants are male and how many are female.
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