Astana-Almaty 2011

Bandy is a winter sport, where a ball is hit with a stick.

It shares a common ancestry with ice hockey, in that it likely developed from the informal "ball and stick on ice" games known collectively as shinny. As such, the game is played outdoors on a sheet of ice.

It differs from ice hockey in that rather than developing its own unique rules or codes, it has rules that are similar to association football.

Bandy is played on ice, using a single round ball. Two teams of eleven players each compete to get the ball into the other team's goal using sticks, thereby scoring a goal.

The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals, then the game is a draw.

There are exceptions to this rule, however. The primary rule is that the players (other than the goalkeepers) may not intentionally touch the ball with their hands or arms during play.

Although players usually use their sticks to move the ball around, they may use any part of their bodies other than their hands or arms and may use their skates in a limited manner.

Heading the ball will result in five minutes in the sin-bin.

Bandy was incorporated into the Asian Indoor Games in 2007 and the Asian Winter Games in 2009.