DENMARK – Welcome to all readers, I am a new staff member here at Pro Hockey News, set to cover the Danish league. My name is Søren Schwartz, I am 35 years old residing in Rødovre just outside Copenhagen. I have been a player agent since 2002, but stopped my agent work in early 2010, so I have an extensive knowledge of the European hockey leagues. From time to time, you might as reader of my columns get a very detailed inside to some issues that are not commonly known, so I hope you will read my articles in the future.
As an introduction to the Danish league, I felt it was necessary to look at the progression inside Danish hockey. So I have divided my introduction into two parts, where the first part will focus on the success of the Danish national team and the second part will shed some light on the Danish league called AL-Bank Ligaen.
Part 1: The Danish National Team
Danish hockey has been in a rapid development over the past decade, culminating with a record high 8th place in the 2010 WC, where big-brother country Sweden ended the Danish race to the top. When looking back Denmark struggled in division B and C during the 90’s, however a change came in 2002, when the team finally managed to get promoted into the top level group at the World Championship.
Since then the Danish team have managed to either barely stay in the pool by avoiding relegation or play in the qualification to the quarterfinals. Many have asked me what has made it possible and what is the biggest factor for this move from being a team outside the top level to now amongst the top 8-12 teams in the world.
If you ask me it is quite simple; I think the fact that we got some Swedish coaches, that showed great passion and desire to change the mentality. In Mikael Lundström and current head coach Per Bäckman, both coaches earned a lot of respect and without doubt it becomes more obvious that what Lundström created during his years as National team head coach, was a small miracle. Right now the job for Per Bäckman is to continue the winning streak created by Lundström.
Table of the results of the Danish National Team over the past 10 years:
Year Group Result Note
2010 WC 8th Lost to Sweden in quarterfinal
2009 WC 13th Saved in relegation
2008 WC 12th Reached qualification round
2007 WC 10th Reached qualification round
2006 WC 13th Saved in relegation
2005 WC 14th Saved in relegation
2004 WC 12th Reached qualification round
2003 WC 11th Reached qualification round
2002 WC 1st Won group to promote
2001 WC 3rd Failed to promote
With the promotion to the top pool, the Danish club teams also progressed into more professional clubs, parting from the youth departments and became more focused on generating money and promoting own talents from the amateur junior ranks.
The year 2002 is also a very important year as Frans Nielsen was drafted in round 3, 87th overall by New York Islanders. This was the beginning of a bunch of Danish talents being drafted in the NHL and even more junior players went on to play in the Swedish Junior systems and pro levels.
However the biggest draft results came in the year 2007 when Lars Eller was selected 13th overall by the St. Louis Blues and the following year Mikkel Bødker set a new draft record by getting selected 8th overall by the Phoenix Coyotes.
Another Danish young prospects Nicklas Jensen is currently playing in the OHL for Oshawa Generals. He is currently ranked 10 on the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau mid term rankings, so it seems like there’s another top player coming very shortly.
Overall the following players have been drafted in the last 10 years:
Draft year Rank Drafted by Current team
2010 #187 CAR Frederikshavn, Denmark Elite
2009 #196 PHI St. Cloud State, NCAA
2008 #8 PHO Phoenix Coyotes
2008 #149 DAL Dallas Stars
2007 #13 STL Montreal Canadiens
2005 #122 MIN MODO, Sweden Elitserien
2005 #189 COL Esbjerg, Denmark Elite
2004 #87 OTT Ottawa Senators
2004 #287 VAN Vancouver Canucks
2002 #97 NYI New York Islanders
Apart from this list of drafted players, the current Danish national team has several players that are playing in the Swedish Elitserien and Allsvenskan.
So what is the future looking like for the national team and can Denmark keep progressing?
That is some of the big questions for the future. I believe that the Danish clubs have a huge responsibility in providing youth departments with funds, the talent must be nursed and developed. As well, the national team is very much depending on the players currently playing in the NHL and I bet the Per Bäckman would like to be able to use all of the Danish players from NHL on his national team in 2011 WC in Slovakia.
However, as it looks right now and the next 5 to 10 years, I strongly believe Denmark has a strong enough youth and junior pool of players, to maintain a position in the WC pool. The biggest obstacle on the road to progression, might in reality be the current financial situation, since the professional clubs in Denmark is struggling financially or at least playing with extremely low budgets. This means that the young players will not get to play with equally good imports as they have in previous years. An advantage is however that more young players will get the chance to play at the Elite level.
This again raises a bunch of questions… But that will have to be continued in next part, where I will go more in depth into the Danish league.
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