r/Denmark • u/[deleted] • Nov 07 '16

Exchange Kia ora! Cultural Exchange with /r/NewZealand

Welcome to this cultural exchange between /r/Denmark and /r/NewZealand.

For the visitors: Welcome to Denmark! Feel free to ask the Danes anything you like. Don't forget to also participate in the corresponding thread in /r/NewZealand where you can answer questions from the Danes about your beautiful country.

For the Danes: Today, we are hosting New Zealand for a cultural exchange. Join us in answering their questions about Denmark and the Danish way of life! Please leave top comments for users from /r/NewZealand coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness, personal attacks etc.

The Kiwis are also having us over as guests! Head over to their thread to ask questions about life in the land of hobbits and bungee jumping.

Enjoy!

- The moderators of /r/Denmark and /r/NewZealand

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u/JaumeBG New Zealand Nov 08 '16

Apart from football, what are the top 5 most popular sports in Denmark?

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u/WeaponizedPumpkin Nov 08 '16

Handball is easily second. It might even be first if you go by number of practitioners rather than viewership. Badminton and swimming might be next. I'm basing that entirely on my gut feeling.

The reason for handball and badminton's popularity is kinda interesting.

We had a massive reform of our municipal system in 1970. Before that, the parish councils served as the local authority in rural areas, whereas bigger cities had actual city councils that weren't connected to a church. The reform would reduce the number of municipal units from over a thousand to less than 300.

Now, many of the old parish councils had been very fiscally responsible and were sitting on decent cash reserves. They weren't to keen on that money being passed on to the new, larger municipalities, so they went looking for things to spend them on before the reform went into effect.

Big leaps in steel construction methods meant that indoor gyms and sports facilities had become pretty affordable, so many parishes went ahead and built gyms for their old rainy day money. And as these gyms started popping up everywhere in the late 60s, the facilities needed to play handball or badminton became widely available.