The St. Louis Blues' recent
selection of Lars Eller in the NHL Entry Draft has brought some media attention to hockey in Denmark.
Any way you slice it, this has been a banner year for Danish hockey. In the course of the last twelve months, there have been a series of important firsts:
* The first two Danish citizens trained in Europe to play in the NHL (Frans Nielsen and Jannik Hansen)
* The first time Denmark will play at the elite level of every major international tournament (the IIHF World Championships, the Under-20 World Junior Championships and the Under-18 World Junior Championships). The Danes accomplished the latter two honors this year after winning both the Division I Under-20 and Division I Under-18 championships, and
* The first Danish citizen (Eller) to be selected in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft. In this year's draft, he was the second European player and the first one playing in a European league to be selected.
There are many more high-caliber Danish prospects on the horizon. Mikkel Bodker, who played with Eller on Frölunda's championship junior team this year, is a potential top-10 pick in next year's NHL Entry Draft. He was just selected today in the CHL Import Draft by the Kitchener Rangers, fifth overall.
Another Frölunda player, Phillip Larsen is a potential first- or second-round pick. There are also several other Danes knocking on the door of the NHL.
Among the younger players on the Danish IIHF World Championship roster, the most notable players were Ottawa Senators draftee Peter Regin and Minnesota Wild prospect Morten Madsen, Columbus Blue Jackets pick Kirill Starkov (a Russian-born Danish citizen) and defenseman Mads Bodker (Mikkel's brother).
Like the younger group, the Russian-born Starkov, selected by the Blue Jackets in the sixth round of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, developed in the Frölunda system in Sweden, as did Madsen, a fourth-round pick by the Wild in the same draft. Starkov tallied 34 goals and 72 points for the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels this season. He was recently signed by Columbus. Madsen had 32 goals and 100 points this season for the QMJHL’s Victoriaville Tigers. He was recently signed by the Wild.
Regin, a 20-year-old center, played for the Timrå IK Red Eagles in Sweden this year, scoring nine goals and 16 points. The Senators drafted Regin in the third round of the 2004 draft. Mads Bçdker, 19, played on the blue line for the victorious Danes as the Division I Under-20 Worlds earlier this season. Originally a product of Danish team Rçdovre IK, he played at the Allsvenskan level in Sweden this year for Rögle BK, posting nine points and a solid plus-10 rating in 40 games. While lacking in size, the defender is a very good skater and passer.
Meanwhile, the Danish youth system continues to churn out an ever-growing number of quality young players in all age categories. For instance, looking ahead to the far distant future, the most prolific youth hockey player in Europe right now may just be an eight-year-old Dane by the name of Nikolaj Krag-Kristensen. Already able to play against older kids, he scored 137 goals this year in the Under-10 category.
Of course, it may just a tad too early to start the countdown to his 2017 NHL draft eligibility. But you get the idea: the Danish hockey program has arrived and it's only going to continue getting better.
***
In
today's installment of NHL.com's Across the Pond, I will be looking at the problems faced by Denmark's traditional rival, Norway. I'd like to publicly thank Internationalhockey.net editor Karsten Skjalm for all the hard work and knowledge he shared with me in assembling this article. I was not even aware of many of the details that appear in the story until Karsten reported them.
To over-simplify what is a very complicated, layered story, while the Danish program is blossoming, the Norwegian program has stumbled, especially over the past year. Everything came to a head over the past 12 months. At the Under-20 junior level, the Norwegians narrowly escaped relegation to Division II (where you find the likes of the junior teams of the Netherlands, Australia and even Mexico). At the Division I U18s, Norway won just two games out of five.
But the biggest problem was at the senior level, where the road to the IIHF World Championships in Moscow was... virtually left unpaved.
Most teams playing at the top level of the IIHF play preparatory games against fellow top-tier teams. In the case of Norway, Belarus was the only suitable team lined up. The rest were Division I opponents. Norway wouldn't have had a prayer against Canada or Slovakia, anyway, and only the slimmest of chances against Germany, but it's pretty hard to improve your team unless you face a better grade of opposition. Even more than this, however, the mismanagement of the teams logistics was almost stunning. To wit:
* When the team traveled to Hungary, they arrived in Budapest to find out that no one had shipped their equipment from Norway. To make matters worse, no one had booked the team a hotel, either.
* When the team traveled to Belarus, the two games were scheduled a four-hour bus ride apart. And no one took care of the food provisions for the team, so they had to ration a few boxes of spaghetti and frozen meat for the trip. If anyone wanted more food, they had to pay for it out of pocket.
* In perhaps the biggest misstep of all, no one took care of securing a visa for one of the Norwegians' most important players (Modo Hockey winger Per-Age Skroder) to travel to Russia. He had intended to join the team right after his wife gave birth. Instead, he wasn't allowed to board a flight from Oslo to Moscow because his visa hadn't been issued.
All things considered, it was a nice accomplishment for the Norwegians to rally in the relegation round and hold onto their spot in next year's tourney in Canada.
In the weeks that followed, several prominent players, including Edmonton's Patrick Thoresen, said they would refuse an invitation to play for the national team next year unless there were some sweeping changes made.
In response, the Norwegian Ice Hockey Federation publically owned up to the need for change and pretty much turned over the entire steering committee (including electing a new president) and selecting a new sports manager, with many of the key recommendations coming from the national team players and coaching staff.
The federation's new leadership has pledged to take steps to get the junior and senior programs back on track, with a special emphasis on developing goaltenders. Long term, if these steps are carried through, what was unquestionably a horrible year for the national hockey progam could be turned into the springboard for progress.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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