Aslaug's Axe Shed

I’m female and I like sports. Ergo, I’m a contradiction in terms, according to certain scientists. At least I can truthfully say I don’t like ALL sports. Just a select few, with Football obviously being the most prominent one. I’m a fan of the Chicago Bears and I have faithfully followed them through the Horrible Nineties, and even to this day. And since most people have a secondary team they also cheer for around here, that would be the Steelers in my case.

I don’t like soccer. I find any game that involves grotesquely overpaid primadonnas, more concerned with their hairdos and how they look on the playing field than whether they do what they get their insane wages to do, and where most games still end up 0-0 or 1-0 after ninety minutes of intense boredom to be an insult to my intelligence.

I really can’t be bothered.

Handball is a big sport in Denmark and sometimes it’s okay … sometimes it’s just dreadful. It’s not something I follow as a general rule. Neither do I think much of professional cycling.

I do like Hockey, though. Ice Hockey, obviously. It’s extremely fast paced, it takes an insane amount of skill to play well, and it is VERY rare to see a nil-nil draw. People pay to watch goals getting scored, and Hockey rarely fails to deliver. Over the last few years I’ve grown increasingly interested in it, since the local team, AAB, has been the runner-up in the national championships three years running. Around here, we’re still hoping they’ll swap the silver for gold sometime soon.

NHL-wise, I like the Penguins. Don’t ask me why … I just like penguins in general, and I guess that was what originally drew me to them. That, and the fact that they are a damned good team. I also rather like the Ducks (anyone with a team logo showing a hockey-mask that would make Donald Duck look like Jason Voorheers wins in my book), so in Hockey-terms it must be a waterfowl thing.

Right now, the Hockey World Championships are ongoing, and Denmark is still in the A-group. However, for YEARS we’ve mainly been in the A-group on the final mandate. Every year, our national team got hammered by awesome hockey-nations like Canada, Finland, Sweden, the Chech Republic and yes … the United States of America (although we did beat them once).

So this year, going into the World Championships, most Danes frankly expected more of the same. That our team would be the proverbial voodoo doll for the other teams to stick their hockey-sticks in and then we’d pummel some B-league nation to stay up.

The group we got into is made up of us, Finland, the United States and Germany. Most hopes rode on Denmark being able to beat the Germans, and the Germans getting hammered by both the Finns and the Americans too. That meant we wouldn’t end up last in our group, and we would even advance to the middle rounds and we wouldnt’ have to play relegation matches. Imagine the distress for danish Hockey-fans when Germany started out by beating the United States?

I know that the world cup is irrellevant to American hockey fans, because for some GODFORSAKEN reason, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) insists on the A-league tournament being held while the Americans are playing the last rounds of the Stanley Cup (ruddy idiots if you ask me. If they held it two weeks later, there wouldn’t be a problem). But for the rest of us … for Hockey Fans around the world, the World Championships are actually a big deal. Not as big as the Olympics, obviously, since that happens only every fourth year, whereas the World Championships are an annual event, but it is still a very big deal. And Danish hockey-fans have been fairly fed up with getting splatted on an annual basis and being, quite frankly, the laughing stock … particularly here in Scandinavia where we are neighbors to two of the pre-eminent hockey-nations of the world, Sweden and Finland.

And then the Germans started out by beating the United States. Truth be told, when I heard that, I thought “okay, relegation-matches again”.

I’ve got to apologize to the Danish players, I guess. Later that same day, they spanked Finland 4-1 and then earlier this evening, they beat the United States by two goals to one in overtime … to advance to the middle rounds.

And if the United States loses their last game to Finland, they are in the bizarre situation that they will end up last in the group, and they’ll have to play relegation-matches, and frankly, the Finns have sent a much better team than the Americans. That would be nothing short of a national disgrace, I think.

But I’m not gloating … much.

Oh hell … yes I am! I find it hillarious when the underdogs can teach the big guys never to underestimate anyone. If Denmark loses the rest of their games at this World Championship, we’ve still made our mark, but frankly … I just might give this team the benefit of the doubt from now on.

Go Denmark.