The first two FIB World Bandy Championships of this season were held at the Göransson indoor Arena in Sandviken, Sweden, last weekend. Seven teams from Finland, Hungary, Norway and Sweden participated in the tournaments.

Both tournaments were big wins for the host nation, Sweden, who won the World Champion titles. Sweden is the dominant nation among the youth national teams. But both Finland and Norway are developing and getting closer every year. Several matches were intense and fairly evenly matched. But the Swedish victories in both tournaments were undisputed. The two finals were played against Finland and ended 7-1 for the 17-year-old men’s teams and 6-2 for the 19-year-old men’s teams.

The real positive of the Men’s 19 tournament was that the trio of teams was extended by Hungary, who participated for the first time to learn, develop and let the tournament be the starting point of a historic period for Hungarian bandy. The team promised to return next season. Hungary’s participation is a testament to the development of youth bandy in Europe, and next year’s tournament will hopefully include more teams. The most positive thing for bandy is, of course, that several countries in Europe are combining senior bandy with the development of youth teams in the corresponding age groups.

THE LAUNCH OF FIB TV

The International Bandy Federation also took advantage of the tournaments to launch its new live broadcasting platform – FIB TV, which combines the FIB’s desire to reach a growing audience worldwide and to arouse the curiosity for bandy in many young people in different countries by providing video archives of past FIB tournaments combined with live broadcasts.

The combined use of the latest AI technique, which provides completely new opportunities to stream live sports almost for free and manual multi-camera annotated productions and replays of the highest quality, was the result of collaboration between FIB, the Swedish Bandy Association and the local hosts,  SAIK Bandy from Sandviken.