Ball hockey in Russia

The first city ball hockey competitions in Russia were held in St. Petersburg . In 1889-1902 these were friendly matches . Drawings of the "Cup in memory of the 200th anniversary of St. Petersburg" in 1903-1905. revealed the best team in the city, who fought for it with representatives of Moscow. Since 1906, the League Cup, that is, the city championship, began to be played in St. Petersburg. Following Petersburgers, city competitions (first friendly matches, then official ones ) began to be held in Moscow .

In 1910-1917, hockey became widespread in a number of cities in different regions of the Russian Empire . By the time the All-Russian Hockey Union was created in February 1914, the competition was held by the Riga and Revel Hockey League. City tournaments were played in Novgorod and Vladivostok (“A. I. Igoni Cup”). In 1915, the first women's tournament was held in Russia.

There were no official regional tournaments in those years. Clubs from the suburbs of Moscow and Petrograd were admitted to the city tournaments of both capitals. Representatives of the provinces neighboring Moscow (Tverskoy Krug and Morozovtsy from Orekhov) held regular meetings with Muscovites, and Novgorodians played more than once with Petrograd residents. In January 1917, friendly matches of the teams of Kazan and Samara took place.

Little is known about the conduct of urban competitions during the Civil War . Only the Russian Sport magazine reported on meetings in Petrograd (1918), Moscow and Saratov (1919).

After the Civil War, the revival of hockey began in the 1922 season. The League Cup rallies in Petrograd and the Moscow championship were resumed, the first matches were held in Kharkov (in 1912 and 1913, due to the lack of large ice rinks, the Canadian version of the game was cultivated there: 7 players in the cde and instead of the ball - a rubber cup "). In 1924 city championships were held in Arkhangelsk, Nikolaev and for the first time with the participation of five teams in Novonikolaevsk. The creation in 1924 of provincial, regional and city councils of physical education contributed to the wider dissemination of hockey. They organized in 1925 the first competitions in Perm, Serpukhov, Smolensk, Sychevka (Smolensk province.) And Drygikh. For the first time after 1917, meetings in Kazan resumed. In 1926, the first competitions were held in Petrozavodsk, in 1927 - in Kremenchug.

To hold championships of provinces, territories and regions in the second half of the 1920s - the first half of the 1930s was difficult both for financial reasons and because the subjects of the Russian Federation at that time were very large. The Siberian Territory that existed in 1925-1930 covered the entire territory of Eastern and Western Siberia. Formed in 1929, the Moscow region then included almost the entire territory of the modern Ryazan and Tula regions and partially - the Vladimir, Kaluga and Tver regions. In this regard, teams from nearby settlements in large cities participated in the championships of these cities. So, for example, teams from Bolshev, Lyubertsy, Mytishchi, Reutov began to play in the championship of Moscow.

The first official regional tournament was held in 1928 among the teams of the Siberian Territory . The following year, a similar competition was held in Khabarovsk. In 1933, the championship of the Moscow Region , which took place according to the Olympic system, was first held. Significant disaggregation of the subjects of the RSFSR in 1935-1938. made it possible to conduct championships in the territories and regions.

In the 1930s , ball hockey continued to develop rapidly. In 1935, quite representative city championships took place in Voronezh, Dnepropetrovsk, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don, Stalingrad . In 1931, the championship of Vitebsk was first played, in 1934 the first tournament was held in Ulyanovsk , in 1938 - in Salekhard and Frunze. By the end of the 1930s, hockey was already cultivated in almost all regions of the country where climatic conditions allowed, and city championships were held in almost all of them. In Ukraine and Belarus began to play the championships of the republics. Starting in 1937, the USSR Cup draw prompted local sports leaders to establish city and regional cups.

After the end of World War II, city, regional and republican competitions gradually resumed. From 1946, the championship of the Moscow Region began to be held, from 1947 - of Kiev, Minsk and Kharkov, in 1948 - the championship of Alma-Ata, which was supplemented by the drawing of the Cup of the Kazakh SSR. Russian hockey competitions began in Latvia (mainly in Riga ) and Estonia (mainly in Tallinn ), in 1949 they began to cultivate it in Armenia: the championships of Yerevan , Leninakan and the Armenian SSR were held, which, under appropriate weather conditions, continued until the end of 1950 years. In 1949, championships were played in Artemovsk, Zhytomyr, Rostov-on-Don, Smolensk, Sumy, Taganrog.

Despite the development of ice hockey in the 1950s , Russian hockey remained “on the ground” much more popular. In competitions at the city and regional level, many more teams took part than in competitions in ice hockey. However, after an attempt was made by a number of sports leaders in the early 1960s to turn ball hockey into an “applied” sport in which the national championship is not held, the number of teams playing at the “local level” has significantly decreased. Nevertheless, city and regional competitions in the 1960s and 1980s continued to take place in most regions of the RSFSR. In other union republics, ball hockey essentially developed only in Kazakhstan, where until 1991 city and regional competitions were held and a republican championship was played among national teams.
In the 1980s, the championships of the Belarusian , Ukrainian and Kyrgyz SSR were held, but their level was low, they practically stopped cultivating ball hockey in Latvia and Estonia , and climate warming made it impossible to develop the game in Astrakhan , Volgograd , Rostov regions.

After 1991, in some regions, city and regional competitions, having lost state and sponsor support, ceased to be held. In 1997, the last championship of St. Petersburg was held, soon the same thing happened in Moscow, the Samara region and several other regions. In some places there were only teams playing in the national championship. At the same time, thanks to the support of local authorities and the help of enthusiasts in the Moscow, Sverdlovsk and several other regions of Russia, regional competitions are still held.

The development of modern ball hockey in Russia is carried out under the leadership of the Russian Ball Hockey Federation . The Federation includes 47 republican, provincial and regional federations and branches of ball hockey ^[1] . The Federation holds competitions of the Russian Championship in the major and first league, the Cup of Russia , as well as championships for women, veterans, juniors and youths, children's tournaments for the Prizes of the Wicker Ball club, mini-hockey tournaments (Rink Bandy), and the whole a number of other competitions ^[2] .

In the top and first leagues of the championship of Russia played ^{[ when? ]} 63 teams from 26 federal subjects representing 6 federal districts ^[3] and one foreign team - Akzhayyk from Kazakhstan Uralsk.

By 2017, a crisis erupted in ball hockey in Russia. Over 10 years, the number of teams taking part in the Russian championship has decreased from 22 to 12. The average attendance of matches has fallen almost three times - from 5,000 people in the early 2000s to 1,700 people in 2016-17. A number of Russian championship clubs are in conflict with the leadership of the ice hockey federation, which led to events such as 90 minutes of penalty time for one team in one match with zero penalties for the opponent or score in the game 9:11, where all 20 goals were own goals . These events received coverage in the Western press, and, according to some experts, the reputation of the entire sport and, especially, ball hockey in Russia itself suffers from such scandals ^{[4] [5] [6]} .
In the 2017–18 season, the conflict with the leadership of the ice hockey federation continued ^[7] .

• Moscow Ice Hockey Championship
• Moscow Region Hockey Championship
• Sverdlovsk Region Hockey Championship
• Championship of the Novgorod region in ball hockey

• Russian Hockey Cup
• List of Russian ice hockey clubs
• Russian Ice Hockey Championship
• Winners of the championships of the USSR, CIS and Russia in ball hockey

• Ball Hockey: Encyclopedia / Comp. Sosnin V.I., Scheglov M.I., Yurin V.L. - M.: New Technologies, 2009.