Bandy Playing Rules

The first rules for bandy was developed and written down in the late 19th century in England, by Charles Goodman Tebbutt, and later on in Russia. The two rule books had some differences but were similar enough that the game can be seen as being the same. At the time, the rules of ice hockey were also more similar with the bandy rules than they are today. The English rules of bandy were adopted in Sweden, Finland and Norway, where bandy survived while it died out in England and continental Europe in the early 20th century. In the 1930s, Sweden, Finland and Norway started to cooperate on the development of the rules, so they would be the same in all three countries. The demonstration of bandy at the 1952 Winter Olympics made Soviet Union interested in joining the international exchange and the three Nordic countries were invited to a friendly tournament 1954 in Moscow. By 1955 the four countries had agreed upon a common set of rules and International Bandy Federation was created, which since then has been the governing body for the sport, although it changed its name to Federation of International Bandy in the first decade of the 3rd millennium. Mostly the English rules prevailed, the most noteworthy exception being the 15 cm high border along the sidelines from the Soviet rule book.