Russian Government Cup was a tournament for national teams in
bandy
Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The international governing body for bandy is ...
, arranged in Russia every other year from 1972
until 2012. The cup has not been played since 2012.
When the
Bandy World Championship
The Bandy World Championship is a competition between bandy-playing nations' men's teams. The tournament is administrated by the Federation of International Bandy. It is distinct from the Bandy World Cup, a club competition, and from the Wome ...
s were held every other year, this tournament was held in around the same time of the year (February/March) in the years when there was no World Championships. Starting in 2003, it was arranged in December instead.
History
Besides the national teams, there have sometimes been irregular teams representing federation subjects of Russia (earlier the USSR) or a "Russia no. 2" team – these are written with ''italics'' below and marked with two flags if they are federation subjects – or Russian club teams, to fill out the tournament. Youth national teams have also occationally been invited.
It was called the ''Rossiya Tournament'' until 1990, because it was arranged by the newspaper
Sovetskaya Rossiya
''Sovetskaya Rossiya'' (russian: Советская Россия, ''Soviet Russia'') is a political newspaper in Russia. It kept its name after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and presently presents itself as a leftist ind ...
. Since then, it was instead being arranged by the Russian government, hence the latter name.
Tournaments
References
{{Bandy in Russia
International bandy competitions hosted by Russia
International bandy competitions hosted by the Soviet Union
1972 establishments in Russia
Recurring sporting events established in 1972
Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2012
2012 disestablishments in Russia