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.
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 a stick to propel a ball or disk into a goal.
Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance, and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender. Ice hockey is a full contact sport, and is considered to be one of the more physically demanding team sports.
Ice skating is the self-propulsion and gliding of a person across an ice surface, using metal-bladed ice skates. People skate for various reasons, including recreation (fun), exercise, competitive sports, and commuting. Ice skating may be performed on naturally frozen bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes, canals, and rivers, and on human-made ice surfaces both indoors and outdoors.
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 Canada national bandy team refers to the bandy teams representing Canada. Presently only the national men's senior team competes. There is the men's national team and the women's national team. Both teams are overseen by Canada Bandy which is a member of the Federation of International Bandy (FIB). This article deals chiefly with the national men's team. For the women's team please see Canada women's national bandy team.
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.
Roller hockey, rink hockey or quad hockey is a team sport played on roller skates. It is a quad-skate team sport where two teams face-off against one another, trying to drive a hard ball with their sticks into the opposing teams' goalnet. Each team has five players on the rink at a time, four of whom are skaters and one who is the goalkeeper. The ball can only be put in motion by a stick, not the skate, otherwise a foul will be stated. The game has two 25-minute halves, with 15-minute halftime intermission, plus up to two 5-minute golden goal periods to settle ties with the clock stopping when the ball becomes dead. If the tie persists, a penalty shootout will determine the winner. Players – including the goalie – use quad skates, whereas inline skates are used in inline hockey. The sticks are similar to those in bandy and shinty. Excessive contact between players is forbidden in rink hockey, unlike inline hockey.
The Ice Hockey Varsity Match is a longstanding competition between the Cambridge and Oxford University Ice Hockey Clubs.
Sport in England plays a prominent role in English society. Popular teams sports in England include field hockey, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, and netball. Major individual sports include badminton, athletics, tennis, boxing, golf, cycling, motorsport, and horseracing. Cricket is regarded as the national summer sport. Association football is the most popular sport, followed by Cricket, Tennis and Rugby. A number of modern sports were codified in England during the nineteenth century, among them cricket, rugby union, rugby league, football, field hockey, bandy, squash, tennis, and badminton. The game of baseball was first described in 18th century England.
Fen skating is a traditional form of ice skating in the Fenland of England. The Fens of East Anglia, with their easily flooded meadows, form an ideal skating terrain. Bone skates have been found in the area dating back to the medieval period.
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.
Matthew Lloyd is a British Paralympian who was born with spina bifida and two club feet. He has competed in ice sledge hockey at the 2006 Winter Paralympics, in Sitting volleyball at the 2007 European Championships, and is credited with inventing the sport of Inline sledge hockey. He was born in Crawley, Sussex but grew up in Rainhill, Merseyside and later resided in Hollym, East Riding of Yorkshire. After completing a degree in Business Information Systems, Lloyd worked within the music industry, firstly as a journalist and then within the A&R department of a major record label, before going to work extensively within the sports and leisure sectors.
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 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.
Norway's Bandy Association is the governing body for the sports of bandy, floorball and field hockey in Norway.
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.
National Bandy Association was the first English governing body for the team winter sport of bandy, and actually the first bandy governing body anywhere in the world. The association was founded in 1891. The first general rules for bandy were written down by Englishman Charles Goodman Tebbutt in 1882. Bandy was a popular sport in England until the First World War, and the England national bandy team won the 1913 European Bandy Championships, but then the English lost interest in the sport and the National Bandy Association was discontinued.
