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 sport is considered a form of hockey and has a common background with ice hockey and field hockey. Bandy has also been influenced by the rules of association football: both games are normally played in halves of 45 minutes, there are 11 players on each team, and the fields in both games are about the same size. Bandy is played, like ice hockey, on ice, but players use curved sticks and a small ball, as in field hockey.