Bandy is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.

The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a football field. Each team has 11 players, one of whom is a goalkeeper. A standard bandy match consists of two halves of 45 minutes each. The offside rule is also similar to that observed in association football. Bandy is sometimes referred to as "winter football" or "football of the winter" in Scandinavia.

Bandy is played on ice, using a single round ball. Two teams of 11 players each compete to get the ball into the other team's goal using sticks, thereby scoring a goal. Analogous to soccer, a goal cannot be scored from a stroke-in or goal throw, and unlike soccer, a goal cannot be scored directly from a stroke-off or corner stroke. In contrast to soccer, however, all free strokes are “direct” and allow a goal to be scored without another player touching the ball. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals, then the game is a draw. There are exceptions to this rule, however.