The Great Danes have Arrived

The happiest country in the world certainly has reason to smile when it comes to the competitive world of sport.

Denmark, with that top honour, as discovered by the Gallup World Poll, surveying 155 countries from 2005-2009, can certainly lay claim to an inproportionate amount of worldwide success (their population peaks at 5.5 million as it stands now) when it comes to three popular sports in particular; tennis, hockey and soccer.

With Serena Williams out of the U.S. Open with a right foot injury, Danish-born Caroline Wozniacki will take the honours of being seeded #1 thanks to her recent win at the 2010 Canadian Open and her 2009 U.S. Open final loss to Kim Clijsters.

But with that seed comes the heavy weight of expectations. Wozniacki (pictured) has performed well when she has been a relative unknown entity on the WTA tour, but now the 20 year-old phenom from the town of Odense is trying to learn from her mistakes last year where she was the first Danish woman to ever appear in a Grand Slam final.

She'll be looking for more than a finalist status this year, but despite Williams' absence, she will still have significant competition from established players like Venus Williams who will be trying to win on home soil, Maria Sharapova, Francesca Schiavone, Kim Clijsters, Elena Dementieva, et al.

While other 20 year-olds in New York worry about what time the Rockefeller Center closes on a weekend, Wozniacki will be battling these top stars for prize money other women her age could only dream of possessing in the world's largest city.

Adding to the northern country's mechanized athlete-producing machine, emerges the Danish national soccer team. Although not the finish the team would have liked at the 2010 World Cup, especially considering their draw in the group stage (they were placed with the Netherlands, Cameroon, and Japan- a manageable group), the Danish showed spurts of brilliance in their matches with precision passing and at times, impenetrable defence.

But just qualifying in the Western-European and South American-dominated tournament shows significant progress for the oft-jubilant country. The 2010 edition of the team featured a largely transitional flavour, with captain, and all-time leading scorer Jon Dahl Tomasson retiring after serving 13 years wearing the arm band. As well, young up-and-comers like Daniel Agger, 25, Simon Kjaer, 21, and Nicklas Bendtner, 22 will look to take the reigns from Tomasson and fellow team leader Martin Jorgensen. Bendtner (pictured) and Agger play for Arsenal and Liverpool in the English Premier League respectively.

Finally, Denmark couldn't be called a true northern, Scandinavian country if it didn't feature its fair share of stars on skates. Sweden and Finland have always had a rich history of superstar hockey players gracing their respective nation's sporting hall of fame, but Denmark is just beginning to tap into the gold mine of puck-crazed youngsters within their borders.

Three prominent Danes have already made names for themselves across the Atlantic, where the NHL rules the professional hockey show domestically and abroad. Most European players will travel to North America to play for the most talented league in the world. These three Danes are no exception, and the oldest only just turned legal drinking age in America.

Lars Eller, 21, jumpstarted a wave of Danish hockey teens with incredible skill to hit the ice on this side of the pond. Eller was chosen 13th overall by the St.Louis Blues in 2007. He was later traded to the Montreal Canadiens as part of the much-publicized deal that saw playoff hero-goaltender Jaroslav Halak shipped to St. Louis. Eller scored his team's only goal in his NHL debut, a 2-1 Blues loss vs. the Calgary Flames on November 5, 2009. Eller will now be looking to adjust to a culture within a culture with his new French-Canadian team.

Mikkel Boedker, 20, arguably the most promising hockey player to come from the land of Hans-Christian Andersen, eclipsed Eller's record for being the highest Dane ever selected in the NHL draft, when he was snatched up by Wayne Gretzky and the Phoenix Coyotes at #8 overall in 2008. Boedker (pictured) made the immediate jump from major junior hockey with the Kitchener Rangers to the NHL's Coyotes the next year as an 18 year-old. Boedker's speed and lethal snapshot makes him a constant threat on the ice.

Finally, the newest Dane to make a name for himself at the tender age of 17, Nicklas Jensen will suit up for the first time in Canada. Drafted by the Oshawa Generals, Jensen will look to elevate his NHL draft stock in the upcoming OHL season. The 6'2 left-winger is fast, has tremendous acceleration and very soft hands for such a big body. Jensen is already projected to go in the first round of the NHL's 2011 draft.

It seems the happy can only get happier in Denmark with very bright, very young, and very talented prospects carrying the country to places 5.5 million have never believed they have the business of being in.

Euphoria for Spain

They had their doubters, their skeptics. And rightfully so.

On the outset, they arrived as favourites. The giants that every other team would need the match of their lives to knock off.

But an early-tournament hiccup against lowly Switzerland in their first match of the World Cup finals, a 1-0 loss, instilled a nervous skepticism, rich with historic evidence to support the thesis that Spain's dream to stay atop Cloud Nine of the football world, has ended.

No team has ever lost their first match and recuperated in time to win the most popular tournament in the world. But the men in red, yellow and blue proved that if anyone could break tradition, it was them.

Fresh off a 2008 European Soccer Championship, Spain proved to the world they were the best of their continent. In June, they were determined to expand that modest title to include the rest of the football-crazed globe.

Now, Spain's 1-0 Extra-time victory over the Netherlands in the World Cup final has given a nation it's dream come true when the collective country had been battling one nightmare after the other for the past few months.

If a country ever needed a blissful and euphoric interruption to the recent harsh realities of the global economic recession, this was it. Extreme national debt levels, rising retirement levels, immense austerity measures to combat a failing domestic financial system, and massive bailouts by the European Union has hindered the Spanish populous from any kind of exuberance. But like Canada's quest in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Spain found their pride through trial, a slow start, and a momentum that may in fact guide the country out of some of its troubles.

Midfielder Andres Iniesta played hero of the day, and in doing so, etched his name into his nation's immortal collective conscious after his impeccably timed strike with just over 5 minutes of play remaining in the extra frame.

His strike reduced his own goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, probably the greatest goaltender in the world currently, to his knees and to tears as he watched his teammate lift Spain to glory.

It capped off a chippy affair in what was expected to be the beautiful game at its best. Two teams, brimming with skill, speed and wits, who didn't need the oft-overused tactic of writhing in pain after a brush with an opponent. Spain were known for their remarkable skill in precision passing. For Holland, it was their adaptability; their indescribable knack for scratching out the victory, even against insurmountable odds.

Instead, 84,000 at Soccer City, Johannesburg witnessed a match that took on a life of its own. The skill was there, but often bookended with confrontations between the players involving high kicks to the chest, knee stomping, and shin kicking. Nothing new for a sport barred from hand use, but in a World Cup final with so much at stake, the amount of player cautions, warnings, and bookings was unheard of. Countless yellow cards were handed out by English referee Howard Webb, and one red, issued to the Netherlands' John Heitinga.

The stars were noticeably absent, or failed to produce anything of substance when the world was watching.

David Villa, the tournament's co-leader in goals with five, shot wide in most of the chances he garnered. Ditto for Holland's Arjen Robben who possessed numerous breakaways and failed to pot the relatively easy strikes the world is so used to seeing from the talented Dutchman. Robben had more time and space than he could ever ask for on multiple occasions, but was stifled by his own inability to finish, or brilliant goalkeeping by Casillas.

Spain's championship marked an iconic finale to a World Cup highlighted as much by what was transpiring off the field as much as on.

Questions surrounding South Africa's performance and ability to host such a prestigious event were silenced and their hosting duties went off without incident. Nelson Mandela's appearance on the final day of the tournament revived a nation, desperate to showcase their emotional former president to the world, and rightly so. Issues raised included either lax (a striking stadium staff) or overbearing security that arrested and imprisoned those that committed what would be considered minor offences in North America. Chinese journalists had their equipment stolen early on in the tournament, and protests that tickets were overpriced for the average South African were evident, but South Africa's third highest attendance record for World Cup action, made the case that accessibility was not an issue.

Vuvuzelas became the hallmark poster-item for South African spirit, and the bee-buzzing racket was originally protested by those watching on TV, but the opposed reluctantly held silent, after seeing what kind of a cultural icon and tradition the noisemakers had become.

Temper tantrums and on-field fighting felled the French team into national disgrace status after disputes between the coaching staff and players affected their play and ultimately their tournament. The French program is now in shambles and in desperate need of proper leadership.

The Italians, English, and Brazilians failed to live up to lofty expectations, with the defending World Cup champion Italians not even making it past the qualifying Group stages, and the English suffering an embarassing 4-1 defeat to the Germans. The English press had a field day with World War II references during their confrontation in the quarter-final. Brazilians' hearts were broken with an incredible early exit in the quater finals versus the Netherlands.

Other highlights included mounting criticism from the world and especially North American audiences over the non-use of video replay to determine valid goals or non-goal calls. Every other professional sport in the world has enacted the technology. FIFA's refusal to do so over its argument that it takes the "human element" away from the game is not a valid counterpoint in the 21st century anymore.

Despite these distractions, upsets and unpredictability, casting at times a very dark cloud over the world's beauiful game, it was the Spaniards who found their moment to rejoice they had desperately been seeking on the world stage. The Netherlands meanwhile, have cemented their status as a future contender, mentioned in the same breath as Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and Spain in the upper-echelons of soccer supremacy.

Casillas' tears have signified a reversal of trends, and his tears of joy will now willingly replace those of sorrow for Spain.

While it is up in the air where the economic fortunes of the country may lie in the near future, Spain will prosper on top of the football world for the next four years to come.

If boys on the pitch can teach a thing or two about clutch performances to the nation's parliamentary syndicate, Spain will again be in fine form come 2014.