Growing sport of bandy now has a hall of fame

For a long time, the sport of bandy was so obscure it barely registered a ripple on the U.S. landscape. After more than three decades of growth in the country, though, the ice sport — consider it a cross between ice hockey, field hockey and soccer — has gained enough traction to create a U.S. Bandy Hall of Fame. ¶ The inaugural class of six, deep with Minnesotans, will be inducted at 6 p.m. Wednesday night at the Aster Cafe in Minneapolis.

They are: Bob Kojetin, former head of Edina Park and Recreation, who is credited with helping introduce bandy — an 11-on-11 skating sport with Swedish roots played with a ball and bowed sticks on a rink roughly the size of a soccer field — to the United States; Magnus Skold, longtime General Manager of the U.S. team; Gunnar Fast, who brought the sport to Minnesota; and Chris Halden, Tom Howard, Chris Middlebrook, all longtime standout players.

The Hall of Fame will be housed at the John Rose Oval in Roseville, which is also the home rink for the U.S. National Team.

"Once we reached the 30-year mark, with hundreds of players, we formed a committee. We're not getting any younger," Halden said. "They decided to do the induction by decade, starting with the guys who really built the sport."

Like a lot of U.S. players, Halden is a converted hockey player. He and Middlebrook were college hockey teammates at Gustavus. Both gave bandy a shot in the early 1980s and became hooked. More than 30 years and countless international tournaments later, Halden still is going strong at age 58. Many of those international tournaments were in Russia, where he said the U.S. National Team players were treated like "rock stars" and often play in front of crowds of 25,000.

Locally, the 11-on-11 version is played at the Oval, while a modified 4-on-4 version at local hockey rinks is catching on among the next generation of college players looking for a diversion, but still a workout, over the summer. A league this summer attracted several top-tier players, and Halden is hoping to convince some of them to make the leap to the national team someday.

"Our formula is to get hockey players to convert to bandy," Halden said. "But we've had a youth program in the past few years with homegrown players. ... It's still a small cult sport. But it's really incredible. It's so fun to play."

And now there's a hall of fame, too.

Michael Rand