2010-02-09_PR Comm Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Bandy players cover more ice than they would in hockey, and they pursue a ball, not a puck. “I used to think we were hardy in Minnesota, but one year we played in Arkhangelsk, up near the White Sea, and it was 38 below,” said Chris Halden, a 53-year-old real estate appraiser, player/coach and member of the team since its inception in 1981. “The Russians told us to soak our feet in buckets of vodka at halftime — supposedly it would keep us warm. Some guys did it. I told them they smelled like booze.” The Guidant John Rose Oval here is the only full-size outdoor bandy rink in the United States. Except for when the Canadian national team clears off its natural-ice rink on a lake in Winnipeg, this is the only place bandy is played in North America. The sport is little known on this continent. But in Sweden it is a part of the , drawing 30,000 or more to the annual championship national culture game. In Russia more than one million people play bandy, with a professional league that pays top players up to $500,000 a year to play in crumbling Stalin-era outdoor stadiums before crowds of 200 to 15,000. “I’ve been very fortunate to experience all of that,” said Chris Middlebrook, who started as a player in 1981 and now divides time between his law career and being the United States team’s head coach. “Through bandy, I’ve been able to meet people and see places I’d never otherwise have seen: Siberia while the cold war was still on, Budapest, Helsinki, full stadiums in the dead of winter cheering us on like rock stars. And then I come back home, and almost no one knows what this sport is.”