Playing on the world stage
Earlier this year, Maths and Sport Science graduate, Eva, competed at the Bandy World Championships in Växjö, Sweden, as part of the first ever women’s team to represent Great Britain.
Popular throughout Scandinavia and Russia, Bandy is the second largest winter team sport behind ice hockey.
The sport was created in England on the frozen Bury Fens in Cambridgeshire. It is an 11-a-side game played with sticks on ice the size of a football pitch and, unlike ice hockey, uses a ball instead of a puck. With its similarities to ice hockey, many of the Team GB players were previously notable ice hockey players, including Eva, who previously played for the Nottingham Mavericks.
Getting into Bandy
Eva describes Bandy as “quintessentially British”, combining football with field hockey to make a product that is fast, exhilarating, and an all-round thriller.