When in Rome Stockholm
On this Super Bowl Sunday, I found it oddly satisfying to be doing something other than watching The Game So Important It Requires Roman Numerals In The Title. Instead of being sprawled out in front of the TV with enough chips, salsa, and various products with names containing the word "cheez" (this being not so much an ingredient as a color, one normally associated with road safety signs), I spent the afternoon with two friends from work watching the World Bandy Championship match at Zinkelsdamm, a five-minute walk from my house.
Largely unknown outside of Northern Europe, bandy is a remarkable sport that looks very much like a cross between soccer and ice hockey. Like hockey, it is played at high speed on ice skates, with sticks, by guys so large they have a measurable gravitational field. Like soccer, there's a large playing surface (in fact, it is roughly the size of a smallish soccer field); eleven players a side; two forty-five minute periods of near-continuous play; and relatively few substitutions, so that most players are on the ice for the whole ninety minutes.
The differences, though, are striking as well. For starters, instead of a puck there is a small hard plastic ball (hot neon pink, in this case, presumably more for visibility than sartorial considerations). There is also no deliberate checking (although there is plenty of contact). But the biggest difference is that there is none of the two-minute-penalty silliness. When these guys get called for tripping or holding, they don't screw around: other than minor fouls (which result in a simple turnover), a penalty means you sit in the box for five or ten minutes! Toward the end of the game, with Russia leading Sweden 3-2, the Russians got called for three consecutive penalties—resulting in the Swedes having three extra skaters on the ice for about the last five minutes! Remarkably, and much to the crowd's rather vocal disappointment, the Tre Kronor were unable to equalize despite the heavy numerical advantage, and Russia won the championship by that score.
Of course, the day we decided to go out to watch this match was the coldest we've had in Stockholm for some time: the weather reports said it was around -10ºC, and I'm not inclined to disagree. I think I began to regain feeling in my toes some time after dinner. Still, I'm so happy we decided to go: though far more modest an affair than That Other Game, this was so much more satisfying. It's not every day you get to watch a world championship in your own back yard. And I finally got to see, up close, the game my father has so often told me he loved as a child. After the match was over, I stood there in the bleachers and looked out across the ice, trying to picture Dad's childhood sports hero threading his way through the opposing defense in the mist.
I'm home now, still defrosting, but very happy. Now if I could just feel the tips of my fingers so I could finish typing this post...
Largely unknown outside of Northern Europe, bandy is a remarkable sport that looks very much like a cross between soccer and ice hockey. Like hockey, it is played at high speed on ice skates, with sticks, by guys so large they have a measurable gravitational field. Like soccer, there's a large playing surface (in fact, it is roughly the size of a smallish soccer field); eleven players a side; two forty-five minute periods of near-continuous play; and relatively few substitutions, so that most players are on the ice for the whole ninety minutes.
The differences, though, are striking as well. For starters, instead of a puck there is a small hard plastic ball (hot neon pink, in this case, presumably more for visibility than sartorial considerations). There is also no deliberate checking (although there is plenty of contact). But the biggest difference is that there is none of the two-minute-penalty silliness. When these guys get called for tripping or holding, they don't screw around: other than minor fouls (which result in a simple turnover), a penalty means you sit in the box for five or ten minutes! Toward the end of the game, with Russia leading Sweden 3-2, the Russians got called for three consecutive penalties—resulting in the Swedes having three extra skaters on the ice for about the last five minutes! Remarkably, and much to the crowd's rather vocal disappointment, the Tre Kronor were unable to equalize despite the heavy numerical advantage, and Russia won the championship by that score.
Of course, the day we decided to go out to watch this match was the coldest we've had in Stockholm for some time: the weather reports said it was around -10ºC, and I'm not inclined to disagree. I think I began to regain feeling in my toes some time after dinner. Still, I'm so happy we decided to go: though far more modest an affair than That Other Game, this was so much more satisfying. It's not every day you get to watch a world championship in your own back yard. And I finally got to see, up close, the game my father has so often told me he loved as a child. After the match was over, I stood there in the bleachers and looked out across the ice, trying to picture Dad's childhood sports hero threading his way through the opposing defense in the mist.
I'm home now, still defrosting, but very happy. Now if I could just feel the tips of my fingers so I could finish typing this post...
posted by Biff at 21:30
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