Dandy "Bandy" Captain from Harvard

Harvard ice hockey alumnus Rick Haney captains the American national team for the little-known sport, which resembles hockey but uses a ball, not a puck.

The sport of "bandy" resembles ice hockey, but uses a ball, not a puck, and covers about twice as much ice with 11 players instead of six. It has an international presence, especially in Russia and Scandinavia; bandy followers even hope to add it to the Olympic Winter Games schedule in the future. Yet the sport is nearly unknown in the United States, where bandy is confined to Minnesota, especially around the Twin Cities. Still, the United States has a national bandy team, featured in the New York Times last week and captained by Rick Haney ’87, who played ice hockey at Harvard. When he discovered bandy, says Haney, "as soon as I stepped out on the ice I knew I was home.”