Silver medal not a bad showing for bandy team with no rink

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/02/2011 (5317 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s called Team Canada, but it might as well be called Team Winnipeg.

The national men’s bandy team, which recently returned from Kazan, Russia, with a silver medal from the B pool in the World Bandy Championships, consists entirely of players who call Winnipeg home.

That could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view.

On the one hand, thousands of potential players, who could use their hockey backgrounds as a springboard into world-class bandy, are not a part of the national program.

On the other hand, as national team halfback Mark Ralph points out, having the whole roster together year-round makes for a tight-knit group.

“Definitely the camaraderie of our team is huge,” said the 24-year-old from Linden Woods. “A lot of us have played hockey with each other over the years, and we do a lot of recruiting from there. Even in the summer we try to get together.”

Ralph, who spent last winter playing in Division 1 of the Swedish League, was playing in his third world championship in Russia from Jan. 23 to 30. After earning a gold medal last year and a silver in his first season with the national team, he was somewhat disappointed with the colour of this year’s medal.

“After winning gold last year it was definitely a little disappointing, but at the same time we lost to Belarus, which used to play in the A pool,” he said.

Ralph said players from Russia and Sweden — both bandy powerhouses — have told him that the Canadians aren’t lacking in talent.

“We have a lot of good skaters from the hockey background,” Ralph said. “Within five years Canada should be in the A pool.”

What’s holding the Canadians back, aside from a truly national program, is the lack of a dedicated bandy facility.

The sport is played on a sheet of ice the size of a soccer field; something that Winnipeg hasn’t had in recent years.

“We played at Sturgeon Creek Community Centre for a number of years,” said Bandy Canada president Morris Glimcher, who added that it cost around $12,000 to maintain the rink. “The tough thing was that the last couple of years, by the time we could have had the ice we would have only had January and February, and there were no lights.”

Glimcher and the players are hoping to convince the City of Winnipeg to flood the infield of the Susan Auch Oval and move the lights from inside the track to the outside.

“It’s a great sport,” Glimcher said. “If we’re able to play at night, we can get some leagues going.”

Ralph agreed that a proper rink would do wonders for the sport in Canada.

“It’s the one thing that holds us back,” he said. “The Americans have had a rink for a while (in Minnesota) and it’s allowed them to develop a little quicker than us. Our team has better skilled players, but we can’t get experience without getting a rink here in Winnipeg.”

avi.saper@canstarnews.com