Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.
Floorball is a type of floor hockey with five players and a goalkeeper in each team. It is played indoors with 96–115.5 cm-long (37.8–45.5 in) sticks and a 70–72 mm-diameter (2.76–2.83 in) hollow plastic ball with holes. Matches are played in three twenty-minute periods. The sport of bandy also played a role in the game's development.
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers of players, apparel, and playing surface, they share broad characteristics of two opposing teams using sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal.
Winter sports or winter activities are competitive sports or non-competitive recreational activities which are played on snow or ice. Most are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally, such games were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and artificial ice allow more flexibility. Playing areas and fields consist of either snow or ice.
The Bandy World Championship is a competition for the men's teams of bandy-playing nations. The tournament is administrated by the Federation of International Bandy. It is distinct from the Bandy World Cup, a club competition, and from the Women's Bandy World Championship. A Youth Bandy World Championship also exists separately from the senior competition and has competitions in both the male and female categories.
Kazakhstan's former long-term President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has challenged sports organizers to engage 30 percent of the country's population in sports. The state has numerous sports clubs where people participate in various types of sports; sport facilities are available to the general public. Kazakhstan currently hosts major international tournaments; Astana and Almaty hosted the VII Asian Winter Games 2011, which drew teams from 27 countries.
The Federation of International Bandy is the international governing body for the sport of bandy, including the variant called rink bandy. The federation is headquartered in Simrishamn Municipality, Sweden.
The Ice Hockey Federation of Armenia, sometimes called the Armenian Ice Hockey Federation, is the Armenian national ice hockey federation. Its headquarters are based in Yerevan. The president, Vahram Sargsyan, is also the Chairman of the Armenian National Federation of Bandy.
Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey-sized ice rinks.
The India national ice hockey team is the national men's ice hockey team of India. They are controlled by the Ice Hockey Association of India and a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). India is currently not ranked in the IIHF World Ranking and has not entered in any World Championship tournaments or at the Olympic Games, but they have only participated in the Challenge Cup of Asia, a regional tournament for lower-tier hockey nations in Asia.
Ice hockey has been played in the United Kingdom since the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was a game between English Army veterans played in Canada that is the first recorded use of a sawed-off ball, which led to the use of the puck in hockey. The Great Britain men's national ice hockey team enjoyed worldwide success through the 1920s and 1930s, achieving bronze at the 1924 Olympics, and gold twelve years later. They also won medals at the World Championships in 1935, 1937 and 1938, though never won the tournament. The national team has struggled since the Second World War, and has not finished better than twelfth in the World Championships since 1962. Ice hockey is played professionally in the United Kingdom in the Elite Ice Hockey League, a ten team league which was founded in 2003.
India has a history of sports dating back to the Vedic period, with Western sports having been imported during British rule. Cricket is the most popular spectator sport; it generates the highest television viewership, with the Indian Premier League (IPL) being the most-followed league in the country. Football has also gained popularity, with the Indian Super League (ISL) being the highest level of domestic football, and the national team winning multiple gold medals at the Asian and South Asian Games. Additional football accomplishments include India having reached the Groupstage of the 1960 Olympics, qualified for the 1950 FIFA World Cup, and won the SAFF Championship. Other sports include kabaddi, badminton, tennis, and athletics, with kho-kho becoming the fourth-most viewed sport. India has also had success in field hockey, winning the World Cup and multiple medals in the Olympic Games. Sports such as golf, rugby, boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, motorsport, wrestling, and basketball are featured throughout the country.
Rinkball is a winter team sport played on ice with ice skates and is most popular in Finland, where it is known as kaukalopallo. This ball sport originated in Sweden in the 1960s and from there landed in Finland in the 1970s.
The Bandy Association of Indians governs bandy in India. Its headquarters are in Aurangabad. Bandy, a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal, is generally played in northern India, where there is snow and ice. India is one of seven countries in Asia and out of a total of 27 to be a member of Federation of International Bandy. The national federation planned to send a team to the 2011 Asian Winter Games in Astana-Almaty, but ultimately did not. In July 2023, there was an Indian visit to Moscow and Krasnogorsk, including the national junior team practicing and playing matches on an ice hockey rink with large goal cages.
Winter sports are common in India in the Himalayan areas. Ski tournaments take place every winter in Gulmarg, Kashmir and Manali. Winter sports are generally more common in the northern states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Skiing, snow rugby, snow cycling and snow football are few of the common sports played in India. Skiing is more popular although India has taken part in Luge in Winter Olympics since 1998. The Bandy Federation of India is headquarters are in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh. Luge is practiced in a big way by the mountain residents in an improvised form called 'Reri'.
The Great Britain national bandy team represents the United Kingdom in international bandy for men since 2019. There used to be a team England in international bandy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but when Britain eventually came back to the sport, it was decided to do it under the name Great Britain.
The Great Britain Bandy Association (GBBA) is the governing body of the sport of bandy in the United Kingdom. It is based in The Fens part of Cambridgeshire, East Anglia. Formerly, the federation was named Bandy Federation of England. After some years with less activity, the federation was restarted and given the name England Bandy Federation in January 2017. In September 2017 the present name was adopted, as the federation widened its scope to all of the UK.
Somali National Bandy Association is the governing body for the winter team sports of bandy and rink bandy for Somalia. The organization was founded in 2013 and is formally a part of the Somali Olympic Committee. The same year, the Somalia national bandy team became the first squad from Africa to join the Federation of International Bandy. The team consists of Somali nationals, mostly living in Sweden. It played in the 2014 Bandy World Championship.
Bandy in the United States is played mostly in Minnesota. The national team regularly plays in Division A of the Bandy World Championships. In terms of licensed athletes, it is the second biggest winter sport in the world. Bandy is a team sport played on ice with ice skates, a ball, and a curved stick on a large sheet of ice called a bandy field. In the United States, the national governing body for bandy is the American Bandy Association (ABA), also called USA Bandy which was established in 1981, the same year it became a member of the Federation of International Bandy (FIB). The USA Bandy Hall of Fame is located in Minnesota.
The Ice Skating Association of India (ISAI) is the national governing body for competitive ice skating disciplines, including figure skating, synchronized skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating in India. The ISAI is affiliated to the International Skating Union, and the Asian Skating Union.
