Venue, Friday 24th of Jan 2020: City of Porvoo, “Pallokenttä”
Venue, Saturday 25th and 26 th of Jan 2020: City of Lappeenranta, Kisapuisto
The “Three Bandy Nations” Finland, Russia and Sweden will play the Three Nations Bandy Tournament 2020 on Fri-Sun 24.-26.1.2020. This tournament is important mid-season training session for all leading Bandy Nations of the world. Three Nations Bandy Tournament is official FIB (Federation of International Bandy) tournament.
This time it is a tournament with Finland, Russia and Sweden. Russia won the first tournament in Åby in December by 3 victories. Russia beat Finland 6-1, Sweden 6-2 and Norway 11-0. Finland ended up on second place, Sweden on third and Norway on fourth place.
For few last years, Team Russia has been World Champion in men’s series. Sweden is another superpower in the world of bandy and Finland is a good and strong rebel which is challenging this long lasting position of superpowers. And now, for a long time, pre-WCS tournament will be played in Finland, on rebels own field, in front of its own audience and supporters.
In the all three nations, there has been ongoing the transition of player generation – there are new young players braking trough to the national teams and it is very interesting to see, how the new generation will challenge older players in the international field.
Friday Night in Porvoo
First, the Bandy caravan will stop in Porvoo, that is a picturesque seaside city in Southern Finland. Porvoo is really Bandy maniac town: its A-team, called “Akilles”, did win this season’s “Cup of Finland” few weeks ago and people of Porvoo have taken Akilles to their own. Match between Finland and Sweden will take place on Friday, 24th of January in Porvoo that is also known as Borgå in its Swedish name. It is sure that Finnish bandy enthusiastic fans will have some comments also to Swedish players in their own language. Match will start on o’clock 19:00 in Pallokenttä (“Ball field”) of Porvoo.
Weekend in Lappeenranta
Bandy caravan will continue to Lappeenranta on Saturday, 25th of January. On Saturday, the audience of Bandy Capital of Finland will see top-match between Russia and Sweden. Match in Kisapuisto (“Competition park”) will start o’clock 13:00. Lappeenranta, and its A-team Veiterä, has dominated three last years of the Finnish Bandy scene: two Finnish championships (2017, 2018), championship finalist (2019) and Cup-finalist (2017, 2018, 2019) with 2 championship and 1 cup winner, has shown that Veiterä and its sponsors have built a real “Bandy Dynasty of Finland” to Southern Karelia. Even though the facilities for bandy are rather archaic, the audience in Lappeenranta is relatively adept and they can appreciate good performance of all teams.
Schedule of the Three Nations Tournament
Fri 24.1.2020, time: 19:00 Finland – Sweden, Porvoo
Sat 25.1.2020, time 13:00 Sweden – Russia, Lappeenranta
Sun 26.1.2020, time 13:00 Finland – Russia, Lappeenranta
The FIB will set official Jury to all matches based on match venue.
More information: FIB EC-member Leo Segerman, +358 40 015 0589