ASU Women’s Hockey: Minnesota hockey background bringing Larson to Russia to represent United States in bandy

(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)

Growing up in the State of Hockey, Minnesota players are raised with the mentality of winning only. Stepping onto the ice means it’s game time. 

Freshman center Finn Larson aspires to bring that intensity to Arizona State’s women’s hockey team.

“That Minnesota high school hockey – she has that mindset,” head coach Lindsey Ellis said.  “They all want to win. They all want to go to that state tournament in Minnesota so it’s cool to have that mindset coming from her.”

But when Larson first came to the desert, she had no intentions of playing the sport. With a heavy course load from Barrett The Honors College at ASU, she wanted to take a step back. 

“She didn’t know we had a team, o it kind of just came about,” Ellis explained.

Larson found out about the program through her older brother Owen, who played for ASU’s D1 men’s ACHA hockey team last season.

“I always had a plan to kind of stop hockey in college and learn to live without in,” Larson said. “Clearly I couldn’t.”

Larson joined the Sun Devil program a few weeks into practice.

“They welcomed her with open arms and were able to get her up to speed and get to know each other,” Ellis said. 

As Larson becomes more in shape for the season, she also is preparing to attend the 2019 World University Games in Russia and play for Team USA, not for hockey, but for bandy.

What exactly is bandy?

“It’s basically field hockey on ice, is the quick description of it,” Larson said. “It’s like a soccer-sized ice rink played outdoors … it’s less body contact and more open skating and my favorite thing about hockey is skating.”

Bandy is a winter sport played internationally. The rules are similar to that of hockey, except that it’s played with 11 players on each team instead of six, the field is larger, and players use a bowed stick and small ball for action.

And while it’s played internationally, why has no one heard of it?

Largely because it is almost exclusively played in Minnesota, Larson’s home turf. In fact, the only full-size, outdoor bandy rink in the entire nation happens to be just outside of her hometown, in Roseville, Minnesota.

Larson was first introduced to bandy when she was 12 years old when her youth hockey association had an exchange program. This took her to Sweden to learn how to play the sport from a local Swedish youth team.

“I literally had no idea what I was doing,” Larson said. “My dad just signed me up for it.”

She, her parents and brother all took this trip to Sweden to learn bandy. 

“Going there, I was like, ‘what?'” Larson said. “‘We’re not playing hockey? What is bandy?’”

For her, working with kids her age from another country and learning a new sport was an amazing experience. Now, she might like bandy almost a little bit more than hockey. 

Larson was able to keep up with the sport back in Minnesota because she lived so close to the local rink and even had the opportunity to play for the women’s U15 National Team in 2015  when the United States hosted the tournament.

This year, Team USA also adds Sun Devils assistant coach and former team captain, Amber Galles, to the roster.

“Finn asked came up to us and asked us if anyone wanted to play since they were missing some players so I was like, ‘yeah, it seems fun,’” Galles said.

Most of the players on the World University Games team are in Minnesota training. Most on the roster are hockey players just picking up the sport for the first time, which “is typically how it works,” according to Larson, who will meet up with the team in Russia for the tournament.

Larson hasn’t had the opportunity to practice with the full team yet, but had a chance to practice with a handful during this past summer while the lineup was still being put together. Now that the roster has been finalized, Larson knows most of the girls from playing youth hockey in Minnesota with or against them, some were even on her high school team at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota.

“Her competing there only helps our team so much better,” Ellis said.

The 29th Winter World University Games will be held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia March 2-12, 2019.

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