DENMARK – After a quick intro to the danish national team, I want to share some insights to the Danish League and clubs. The league is called AL-Bank League, because a big bank has bought the sponsorship for the league name. But in reality it is the Danish Elite League. In the past 10 seasons there has been numerous bankrupcies in Denmark, where we lately saw a couple in the 2009-10 season, when Rungsted and Herlev went bankrupt. For the 2010-2011 season, the league consists of only 8 teams, where all play 39 games in a regular season.
The teams in this season include AaB (Aalborg), Frederikshavn, Herning, Esbjerg, SønderjyskE (Vojens), Odense, Hvidovre, and Rødovre.
The top six placed teams have now moved on to the quarterfinal stage, with two groups of three teams. Right now the groups are lacking one game to be played.
One of the groups has already been decided, Herning and Frederikshavn are through to the semifinal series, where the teams will play best of seven.
In the other group, there is drama as the group is currently open for two teams to qualify for the last semifinal spot.
SønderjyskE has already qualified, however Aalborg and Rødovre still have a chance. It is up to Aalborg to decide the fate of them both, as Aalborg played against SønderjyskE on Tuesday. At the moment Rødovre is in position to qualify, however a win in regular or overtime will give the last spot to Aalborg.
In general, the level of Danish hockey has decreased a bit because the leagues do not have the same attraction to imports and quality of the imports. This is both good and bad, as the youngsters now get a chance to play the Elite level at an earlier age. Then one can also discuss if these players are ready or mature enough for the task that they will get. In recent years there has been a lot of talks about wether young players would benefit more from playing in North America’s junior ranks or even the Swedish junior leagues over playing at Elite level in Denmark with grown men.
As a former player agent this writer must say that I believe it is an individual case on the player and his talent. In order to explain more about this dilemma, I have added a case of the young talented player Jannick Christensen, currently with Frölunda Indians Junior 20 team. He played last season in Esbjerg Elite as a top four defenseman at age 17, logging a decent amount of ice time. But he felt he was stuck and he didn’t develop enough and felt he needed more individual practise.
He was playing in games and going for practise a few times a day, but at most times, his older teammates was semi-pro players, meaning they had a job on the side of their career. Some had a wife and family and what follows with that. So the intensity in practises was not at all like the one he experienced after he had made up his mind to leave for Sweden’s Junior system.
He moved to Sweden, to play for Frölunda’s Junior 20 team, which is one of the best in Sweden. He was told that in case the Elitserien team would have a lot of injuries and he was playing as they expected he could earn time in some games there.
Now after Jannick moved there, he is playing with or should I say competing against 20 other players who want to progress and be noticed by scouts. Players that only think of playing their shot at getting into the pro ranks. So far Jannick has played two games in Frölunda’s Elite team and is a good talent, that they expect more from.
So back to Denmark where the National team coaches try to put pressure on the young players to have them close by for evaluation, they do not want them out in Sweden or other countries.
In my mind a huge mistake, if you look at the players we currently have in the NHL with Danish heritage, they have one thing in common, they’ve played outside Denmark before their move to the big league (NHL).
The league level I guess would be compareable to ECHL/CHL or like a cross between the Swedish Allsvenskan and Division 1. The typical import in Denmark comes from former top players, with years of experience from the best leagues in countries like Finland, Sweden and Czech Republic. However we also see a good portion of young unproven players who want to take their shot and get into the pro series in Europe.
The level this year might not be so flashy, but because most of the teams have gone down in level, I think the level is as equally exciting. Over the next time I will be covering the Danish league, game by game, so keep on reading.
For comments please contact me here: sportkoncept@gmail.com
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