Karsten
02-01-2006, 04:32
The President of the Danish Hockey Federation, Enver Hansen has written a very angry piece on the federation's homepage. It deserves some attention, so I will translate his main points. You can find his article here (http://www.ishockey.dk/hentnyhed.asp?id=805).
The occasion for Enver Hansen's intervention: A few days ago, the leading public television channel, Denmark's Radio (DR) celebrated the Year of Sport 2005 with a big tv show. Can you believe it: Ice hockey was not mentioned with one single word during the two hour show!
Enver Hansen:
"Obviously DR Sport does not think that Denmark's biggest winter sport deserves to be mentioned in their status of the year of Sport 2005. Instead, we got - as expected - lots of handball. But Sports Editor Olav Skaaning Andersen (i.e. the sports editor of DR, edit Dancan), do you realize that ice hockey attracts more spectators than handball? We are talking about the average attendance, and here more people want to see ice hockey than even women's handball (massively coveraged in the Danish tv stations and in the newspapers, dc).
It is virtually a scandal when DR despite the attendance numbers and the high level of the sport ignores icehockey....
...and expectedly the Ragnhild Price (DR's sports reward for developing sports talents) was rewarded to a handball coach...Jan Pytlick (the coach of the women's team, dc) is no doubt skillful, but how many countries play womens' handball (relatively few, dc), and how many girls play handball in Denmark (a lot, dc)?
There are 4,000 active hockey players in Denmark - including everybody from midgets to Old boys - and Stefan Bergkvist (the coach of the Danish junior teams U16, U18, U20, dc) is only able to choose among 500 players. But ice hockey is the world's biggest winter sport, and Denmark is up against countries with a much bigger recruiting potential and much bigger budgets than we have -- in Toronto, for instance, there are more hockey REFEREES than hockey players in Denmark.
Stefan - and the skillful club coaches - has nevertheless managed to bring our U18 and U20 close to the top of the world. And if this doesn't deserve a talent reward, then I don't know what is required".
:rant: :023: for Enver Hansen
The occasion for Enver Hansen's intervention: A few days ago, the leading public television channel, Denmark's Radio (DR) celebrated the Year of Sport 2005 with a big tv show. Can you believe it: Ice hockey was not mentioned with one single word during the two hour show!
Enver Hansen:
"Obviously DR Sport does not think that Denmark's biggest winter sport deserves to be mentioned in their status of the year of Sport 2005. Instead, we got - as expected - lots of handball. But Sports Editor Olav Skaaning Andersen (i.e. the sports editor of DR, edit Dancan), do you realize that ice hockey attracts more spectators than handball? We are talking about the average attendance, and here more people want to see ice hockey than even women's handball (massively coveraged in the Danish tv stations and in the newspapers, dc).
It is virtually a scandal when DR despite the attendance numbers and the high level of the sport ignores icehockey....
...and expectedly the Ragnhild Price (DR's sports reward for developing sports talents) was rewarded to a handball coach...Jan Pytlick (the coach of the women's team, dc) is no doubt skillful, but how many countries play womens' handball (relatively few, dc), and how many girls play handball in Denmark (a lot, dc)?
There are 4,000 active hockey players in Denmark - including everybody from midgets to Old boys - and Stefan Bergkvist (the coach of the Danish junior teams U16, U18, U20, dc) is only able to choose among 500 players. But ice hockey is the world's biggest winter sport, and Denmark is up against countries with a much bigger recruiting potential and much bigger budgets than we have -- in Toronto, for instance, there are more hockey REFEREES than hockey players in Denmark.
Stefan - and the skillful club coaches - has nevertheless managed to bring our U18 and U20 close to the top of the world. And if this doesn't deserve a talent reward, then I don't know what is required".
:rant: :023: for Enver Hansen