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It’s Not Hockey, It’s Bandy <br />T. C. Worley for The New York Times <br />Bandy, which has similarities to soccer, has 11 players on a side and is played on a rink that is 110 yards <br />long and 60 yards wide. <br />By JEFF Z. KLEIN <br />Published: January 28, 2010 <br />ROSEVILLE, Minn. — On a recent 10-degree night in this Twin Cities <br />suburb, two men’s teams skated and stick-handled and zeroed in on goal. <br />But they were not playing hockey. The rink was 110 yards long and 60 yards <br />wide, about the size of a soccer field. Each side had 11 players, and they <br />passed and shot a small orange ball, not a puck, toward the 7-foot-high, 11- <br />foot-wide net. <br />The game was bandy, a forerunner of hockey that dates back 200 years, and <br />the United States national team was playing its last scrimmage before <br />heading to Moscow for the annual world championship, which ends <br />Sunday. Enthusiasts of bandy, which has similarities to field hockey and <br />soccer, are fighting for it to become an Olympic sport. <br /> <br />