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HOCKEY

Field hockey in Denmark: an international discipline

Seen as a rather obscure sport in Denmark, field hockey has provided a chance for international friendship - and glory - at one Copenhagen club.

Published: 2 May 2018 14:36 CEST
Field hockey in Denmark: an international discipline
Player profile photos from Copenhagen hockey club KH Hockey. Composite: supplied

The sun dips low over the horizon as the sounds of hockey sticks thumping hard plastic balls fill the early evening air in Valby. A training session is in progress at KH Hockey, Denmark’s oldest hockey club, as it prepares for another season in the top-flight. 

On one of the flanks of the club’s pitch enclosure, a group of amateur footballers on the way to a match of their own, beers in hand, roar with laughter at the sight of KH’s players training. To them, this is a crude and alien sport. With only a handful of field hockey clubs in the country’s two competitive divisions, this can be no surprise. 

Dreams of glory

For KH, the reality of playing a sport that most dinner table conversations associate with rullehockey (amateur hockey played on roller blades, often on pavements and backyards) or the more popular variant of the sport, ice hockey, can be tough.

The team is a resilient bunch, however, and have secured their status in Denmark’s top flight year after year, finishing second last season. And the dream of another title to compliment the back-to back triumphs of the 2008 and 2009 seasons remains alive, as yet another new season dawns.

This year will be different though, if for nothing else than the fact that the club will be hosting the biggest tournament in it’s 114-year history, the Mens Euro Hockey Club Challenge III, which will run for four days this May and features teams from Ukraine, Malta, Sweden, Turkey and Norway.

Qualification for the annual event, hosted by a different nation each year, is secured by finishing among the top 2 in the highest division of each league.

The lure of a prestigious international tournament

For many KH players, playing in the league is one thing, but the draw of an international tournament of this calibre is incomparable. In fact, it is one of the factors that single handedly draws numerous former KH players back to the club, if only for the duration of the tournament, where strength in numbers is pivotal to any team that wants to do well.

Participating in the competition also boosts the club’s profile, and the generally limited pool of international players in Denmark tends to take notice.

In addition to a base of local players, KH, like several other Copenhagen clubs, relies on a stream of internationals to secure its squad numbers.

A mix of expats from as far as Australia and European exchange students are among those to have have made KH the team it is today. For many, playing hockey is a good opportunity to make local friends and become more acquainted with Danish culture, while there are others who are in it simply for the love of the game.

KH players were keen to express the importance of the upcoming tournament for the club.

“Being in the EC Hockey Challenge with KH means that Denmark and Copenhagen in particular can present itself as an active and alive hockey community, where fun and sportsmanship come together,” Dutch player Fabian van Oevelen says.

“We have the heart and the talent to be Danish champions again and this tournament is a boost to this dream,” teammate James Luke Barnes of the United Kingdom adds.


KH Hockey players Fabian van Oevelen (L) and James Luke Barnes. Photos: supplied

Firm expectations for the new season

With the sun long gone, a plastic Grays ball rolls across KH’s floodlit Astroturf pitch for a final time in this particular training session.

Captain Rasmus Mundeling brings things to a close with a shout as the lads gather around the dugout for a swig of water. English, Danglish and Danish jokes break out en masse. KH’s season is in full force and spirits are high. Will this be the year they lift the Danish trophy for the first time since 2009 and how well will the team do in the Mens Euro Hockey Challenge?

The Euro Hockey Challenge can be watched live and free of charge at KH Hockey from May 18th-21st. A full match schedule can be found here.

Join KH Hockey Club

KH Hockey is on the lookout for new talent. Teams consist of numerous nationalities from all over the world and have both male and female youth and adult squads. All skill levels are welcome.

Information about how to join is available on the club's website and Facebook pages.

Allan Mutuku-Kortbæk is a player and club member with KH Hockey.

READ MORE: Sports stories from Denmark

EXPATS

Meet the group building bridges between Danes and foreign residents

Moving to Denmark as an expat often turns out to be more difficult than you would expect. Snigdha Bansal, a student at Aarhus University's Mundus Journalism program, writes about the Facebook group trying to build bridges with Danes.

Published: 2 July 2020 12:18 CEST
Meet the group building bridges between Danes and foreign residents
The group has six active admins, from both Denmark and elsewhere. Photo: Tine H. Jorgensen
Moving to Denmark as an expat, one looks forward to embracing Danish culture and getting integrated into one of the world’s happiest societies. However, it often turns out to be more difficult than you would expect. 
 
Established in 2019, ‘Beyond Stereotypes: Danes & Internationals’ seeks to facilitate interactions between expats and locals in Denmark
 
‘Difficult to integrate with the Danes’
 
Poulomi Deb Bose, 33, moved to Denmark from India with her husband in June 2019. She says Danes have been very helpful in everyday interactions – at supermarkets, or at bus stops, helping her find her way in English. However, it has been integrating with them that has proved difficult.
 
“My interaction with Danes is limited to my landlord or people at the local kommune. It’s even difficult to spot them around, unless at the gym, where it never goes beyond a smile. It is a lot easier to talk to other internationals”, she says.
 
A couple months ago, a friend told her about a Facebook group with not just internationals but also Danes. Up until then, she had only been part of the groups with Internationals and this was the first of its kind where both communities were encouraged to interact with each other.
 
 
‘Building bridges’
 
Beyond Stereotypes: Danes & Internationals is a Facebook group with over 2,400 members.
 
The group was formed by Tine H. Jorgensen, a 56-year old academic and practitioner. While it acts as a meeting point for expats in Denmark and Danes, members are also invited to share their own unique experiences of interactions within the community to inspire and help others.
 
The idea of the group was sparked in early 2019 by a conversation Jorgensen had after a radio show in Aarhus where she was performing clairvoyance on air. The host of the show, Houda Naji from Morocco, and Enas Elgarhy, another invitee from Egypt, told her of their experiences of getting married to Danes and settling in Denmark.
 
“They talked about how difficult it was to make Danish friends, how long it took to get a CPR number which was needed for basic things like going to the gym, and other issues that made me realise how ridiculous it was for internationals. I asked myself what I could do about this.”
 
She decided the least she could do was to start a Facebook group, and invited both Naji and Elgarhy to join her as admins.
 
As the group has grown, its “bridge-building” role has become clearer, says Jorgensen, as more International and Danish admins come on board. 
 
 
The group organises monthly meet-ups for members to interact. Photo: Tine H. Jorgensen
 
‘Challenging our own biases’
 
Marta Gabriela Rodriguez-Karpowicz is a 38-year old life coach from Poland who recently started her own practice after working at the Danish corporation Vestas for almost 10 years.
 
She recently became a Danish citizen after 12 years of living in the country and is also an admin of the group. She took on the role because she believed that it would be “a worthwhile effort to build bridges between Danes and Internationals, which doesn’t appear to be happening naturally.” She wanted to be a part of this initiative owing to her own struggles to integrate and her experience of having grown past that phase, using which she could help others. 
 
“I also wanted to identify which biases I still had myself, so I could challenge them and grow beyond stereotypes”, she says.
 
‘Overcoming challenges’
 
The group connects people across Denmark by organising hobby-based meet-ups, providing a platform to discuss travel stories around Denmark as well as social issues such as racism. Job postings and job-seeking posts are also welcome, which some would say is the biggest challenge. 
 
Both Bose and Rodriguez-Karpowicz accompanied their husbands who found jobs in Denmark, and did not expect the difficulties they would face while finding jobs for themselves.
 
Bose associates it with the trust factor that is deeply ingrained in Danes. “I have realised they can be quite rigid in trusting outsiders for jobs or with references”, she says. 
 
This is also an area Rodriguez-Karpowicz believes she can help members with, since she found it difficult to get a job despite being “highly educated and experienced”, but eventually managed.
 
Integration in a new country can be difficult, but expats shouldn’t give up, according to Jorgensen. 
 
She acknowledges that racism does exist in Denmark, but at the same time, there are a lot of Danes who are very welcoming, and that’s the Danish attitude she wanted to highlight.
 
“I wanted to do my little bit to bring that forward, and connect people in a practical way.” 
 
  
 
  
 

 
 
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