Bandy was first introduced to Canada in the city of Winnipeg in 1986.[3] The initial organizations for bandy in Canada were called the "Bandy Federation of Manitoba" and "Canada Bandy Association/Federation". The men compete in the Bandy World Championship. Canada's national men's bandy team made their world debut at the 1991 Bandy World Championship.
While Canada is a country with a strong tradition in ice hockey and ringette, both sports are played on an ice rink and Canada does not have artificial ice rinks large enough to qualify as regulation-sized bandy fields. As a result, Canada's national men's team practices at home on ice hockey rinks or other substitute surfaces.[4] In the past, the Canadian women's bandy team practiced on a frozen water hazard on a Winnipeg golf course. Team Canada occasionally goes to the United States to practice in areas where full-sized bandy fields exist.[5]
While early forms of what is now called "bandy" have been recorded to have been played in Canada as far back as the 1850s after having been introduced by British soldiers, Canada did not form a national bandy team until the 1980s. The game was initially called "hockey on the ice". However, the sport of ice hockey, (which used the smaller ice rinks and pucks rather than the larger bandy fields) and a bandy ball, organized in Canada in 1875, absorbing bandy sports in the process and resulting in bandy's disappearance from North America. The sport did however formalize in England at the same time when ice hockey was being formalized in Canada. The first Team Canada for bandy was the Canadian men's national bandy team in 1991.
At the 2010 Bandy World Championship Canada won Group B for the first time. Canada, however, lost the Group A qualification match against the United States by a score of 6–9, and thus would again play in Group B at the 2011 Bandy World Championship in Kazan, Russia.[8] For this Championship Canada's team included 4 players playing professionally in club teams in Sweden.[9]
The senior Team Canada squad participated in the 2017 Bandy World Championship,[13] where they won the Gold Medal of the Division B tournament,[14][15] qualifying for Division A in 2018.
^TeamsArchived 2 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine 2014 Bandy World Championship Official Homepage. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
^"Teams". Archived from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
^"По примеру Сочи и Кремля" [Following the example of Sochi and the Kremlin]. rusbandy.ru. Bandy Federation of Russia. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
