How do Russians view Bandy?

[eal]

How does Bandy compare to Ice Hockey in Russia? I know Bandy is quite popular in Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Murmansk, etc. Are Bandy fans and Ice Hockey fans the same people, or is there a rivalry? The Kazan Bandy team seems to be known as Ak-Bars Dynamo Kazan now, is that a partnership with the KHL club?

Click to read more...

 

[Albatros]

As you can see there's not that much overlap, but bandy is also perceived as an equal form of hockey in Russia. Russian hockey and Canadian hockey. Still I wouldn't say there's more rivalry between the two than for example between hockey and lacrosse in Canada.

 

[Atas2000]

How does Bandy compare to Ice Hockey in Russia? I know Bandy is quite popular in Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Murmansk, etc. Are Bandy fans and Ice Hockey fans the same people, or is there a rivalry? The Kazan Bandy team seems to be known as Ak-Bars Dynamo Kazan now, is that a partnership with the KHL club?

No, Dynamo is the original name and affiliation. Ak bars is the white panther, particulary panthera uncia. Bars being the other name for a panther in Russian and in Turk languages where the word was adopted from to Russian. The white, or snow bars also goes by the name of "irbis", hence the name of AkBars' MHL team. The thing is - it is the heraldic animal of Tatarstan in general, so you will find a lot of ak bars in Tatarstan. That brings us to the AkBars Bank which became the main sponsor to the bandy team Dynamo Kazan, so the name of the bank was incorporated.

Bandy is much bigger in the regions you named than in Kazan. In gerneral it's a regional tradition. Other than that it is not perecived as a rival or whatever. A diffrent sport with only somewhat overlapping fanbases. I do enjoy watching russian hockey and I am explicitly greateful to it for having arenas where you can skate on a huge surface during winter.

 

[Eye of Ra]

No, Dynamo is the original name and affiliation. Ak bars is the white panther, particulary panthera uncia. Bars being the other name for a panther in Russian and in Turk languages where the word was adopted from to Russian. The white, or snow bars also goes by the name of "irbis", hence the name of AkBars' MHL team. The thing is - it is the heraldic animal of Tatarstan in general, so you will find a lot of ak bars in Tatarstan. That brings us to the AkBars Bank which became the main sponsor to the bandy team Dynamo Kazan, so the name of the bank was incorporated.

Bandy is much bigger in the regions you named than in Kazan. In gerneral it's a regional tradition. Other than that it is not perecived as a rival or whatever. A diffrent sport with only somewhat overlapping fanbases. I do enjoy watching russian hockey and I am explicitly greateful to it for having arenas where you can skate on a huge surface during winter.

i think biggest rival for russia in bandy is sweden?

 

[Atas2000]

i think biggest rival for russia in bandy is sweden?

Yes. Sadly, what "kills" the international competition is that even worse than in hockey there is only a Big 2. Finland won the Worlds once(!) in 2004. Other than that no nation other than Russia/USSR or Sweden has won it ever.

 

[Albatros]

Team Germany as one of the stronger "other" teams relies almost entirely on Russian emigrants, too.

 

[eal]

Finland occasionally challenge the top two of Sweden and Russia. Kazakhs generally sit fourth, Norwegians fifth, and then you are into minnows like the USA, Estonia, etc. Interestingly enough, the founders of Bandy Great Britain just reformed a Bandy team and have been doing quite well, they won the Division Two Championship last year.

 

[AaronDellForPrez]

Both coaches from scandalous bandy game suspended for 2.5 years

Lol. That's a lot of own-goals.

 

[cska78]

I really like it, had there been a league here in USA I would totally go....give me some hot tea / mulled wine - would be awesome!

 

[cska78]

Russian ice hockey the skill and the moves a lot comes from Bandy.

 

[Atas2000]

AkBars is using the New Year break to have some fun playing bandy. Double the fun for me as I go to skate there quite often.

 

[cska78]

I know back in the day CSKA used to play bandy to unwind as well, not sure if this tradition still lives.

 

[Lavina21]

How does Bandy compare to Ice Hockey in Russia? I know Bandy is quite popular in Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Murmansk, etc. Are Bandy fans and Ice Hockey fans the same people, or is there a rivalry? The Kazan Bandy team seems to be known as Ak-Bars Dynamo Kazan now, is that a partnership with the KHL club?

I think you mistook Krasnodar for Krasnoyarsk. The later is a Siberian city and one of the bandy centers in Russia while Krasnodar is a southern one lacking both ice hockey and bandy traditions. Also my native region Ulyanovsk is quite big in bandy with no ice hockey there(. Arkhangelsk is another significant bandy center.

In general I agree that bandy is very popular in Russia and there is quite a rivalry between ice hockey and bandy here. It’s very common that a region which is big in ice hockey lacks bandy and vice versa. That being said I assume Russia doesn’t use a half of its ice hockey potential because lots of regions greatly suitable for this sport simply don’t develop it since they choose bandy.

 

[Rigafan]

How does Bandy compare to Ice Hockey in Russia? I know Bandy is quite popular in Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Murmansk, etc. Are Bandy fans and Ice Hockey fans the same people, or is there a rivalry? The Kazan Bandy team seems to be known as Ak-Bars Dynamo Kazan now, is that a partnership with the KHL club?

 

[sdf]

It's ridiculous, but i can watch it sometimes. But I'm not russian, so that's not count

 

[Rigafan]

It's ridiculous, but i can watch it sometimes. But I'm not russian, so that's not count

Its not the best game to watch on TV I feel. Though it is an interesting game for sure. There is no bandy in my country so I'm stuck to watching streams or youtube.