The Frederikshavn White Hawks are a Danish professional ice hockey team playing in the top Danish ice hockey league currently called the AL-Bank Ligaen. The team is based in the town of Frederikshavn on the east coast of Northern Jutland, Denmark, and is run by the Frederikshavn Ishockey Klub (F.I.K).
History[]
The White Hawks were founded in 1964 and have won the Danish title twice (1989, 2000) and have been runners-up twice (1999, 2008).
Recent History[]
In 2008 they progressed to the final after finishing the regular season seeded 8th (the first team in Danish league history to do so) knocking top seed Rødovre out in the first best of 7 series in the 7th game by scoring two late goals to win by 1. They beat the next season's champions SønderjyskE in the semi final series, but lost the final in five games to the then reigning champions Herning.
2009 saw them seeded 7th. If not for the bankruptcy of Hvidovre they would have finished 8th and probably faced Herning and forced their local rivals AaB out of the finals by 1 goal differential. However Hvildovre's bankruptcy left an open slot for AaB and put the White Hawks up a place to face Rødovre (second seed) again in the quarter finals. This was also a very close series with the White Hawks winning three games over the much favored Rødovre, and pushing them to game 7 again. Rødovre won game 7 fairly easily, but the decisive moment was really Rødovre's overtime win in game 4, without which the White Hawks would have progressed after winning game 6. Rødovre went on to lose the semi finals to SønderjyskE who beat Herning in the finals.
Current State[]
2009 brought financial problems to all Danish ice hockey clubs, and they all released or not signed new big name / expensive players for the coming 2009/10 season. Non Danish players with important roles in the team such as Lubos Pisar and Mike Martin have left, along with many foreign players the fans are sorry to lose such as Matt Davidson, Martin Spanhel, Rob Globke and Jaska Vilen. However, their departure leaves space for young local talent, and thankfully the big Danish names at the club (for the most part) remain. The White Hawks currently only have only two non danish players on the books. There are some names not yet announced as leaving who may resign such as Ilya Dubkov and Radim Piroutek; their situations are not known at the time of writing.
Interesting Rivalry[]
The White Hawks have a strong rivalry with Denmark's biggest ice hockey club "AaB ishockey" from the city of Aalborg around 54 km south from Frederikshavn. This is an interesting yet slightly strange rivalry to the outside observer due to AaB ishockey being a team run by the football club "AaB" who are the most northern top flight Danish football club and are also fairly strongly supported in Northern Jutland towns such as Frederikshavn. Thus White Hawks fans who also follow football find themselves supporting the football club that runs their ice hockey arch rivals, and fans who stand side by side at football games, are standing opposed to each other at ice hockey.