By virtue of winning the Continental Cup, the club from Vojens will be one of two Danish representatives in the Champions Hockey League in 2020/21, alongside the Aalborg Pirates. In the draw, SønderjyskE were matched up against Swiss powerhouse ZSC Lions Zurich, who are also making their return to the competition.

“It’s a tough draw, but we knew every team we could have gotten would have been a tough opponent. It’s a big experience playing against Zurich, which is one of the best teams in Europe. It will be nice for everybody and a nice experience as a club to have them here, and go there and play them. For sure, they are the favourites, no doubt about it, and I think they know that too.

But in hockey anything can happen, and we have shown before in this tournament that we can do some good things if we stick together and do the right things,” Frank said, referring to his previous experience in the competition with SønderjyskE back in the league’s debut season.

Read our full preview of the Round of 32 clash between SønderjyskE Vojens and ZSC Lions Zurich

In 2014/15, SønderjyskE made their debut in the Champions Hockey League and recorded some mightily impressive results. The Danish side were desperately unlucky to lose out in overtime to HIFK Helsinki, and also looked highly accomplished during a victory on the road in Krefeld.

Frank said that these results show the quality that Danish hockey has to offer.

“In that year, as I remember, we didn’t lose the two games to Skellefteå by a large margin and we had a big loss to Helsinki up there, but here at home we lost in overtime, and we were actually close to winning that game.

And Krefeld we beat down there. It was nice and it showed how far Danish hockey came, and how far SønderjyskE came in those years that we could actually play with teams that should be way better, and are way better, but on our day we showed that we could compete with them,” the Danish forward said.

Looking back on his career trajectory so far, Frank, who stands 190cm tall, said that it took a lot of work to break into the SønderjyskE team as he was developing as a junior, particularly given that the team was so strong.

“It was a tough time. In Denmark at that time, teams had a lot of money and they spent a lot of money. They didn’t really bring up young Danish players. One of my friends was on the team, he joined a year or two before me, and then I came on, so it was more like one guy almost every second year.

Now you see, we have five or six really young guys on the team and it’s been like that for the last five years. It was tough but it was a good thing. You came in on a strong team, you knew you needed to work hard and there were good players around you that you could learn a lot of them … It was fun to be on the road with SønderjyskE when they won the Danish Championship back in 2006. I got a couple of games in 2007 and then got a contract in 2008,” Frank commented.

The Danish forward has since gone on to become a major contributor for the club from Vojens. With a career-high 42 regular season points registered in 2013/14, Frank has solidified his status on the club as a leading veteran force, but getting to that level wasn’t easy.

“I was a skinny guy as a junior player and living off my talent. I played a year up, and for my original team, so I had two teams to play for, so I was always getting ice time, so mentally and physically I needed to work on some things.

It was great to join a team where you knew you couldn’t expect any ice time and I needed to adapt to that mentally, and then there was a lot of times in the gym where you do stuff, and especially in Denmark when I was young, we didn’t really have any training in the summer. Every guy now does it when they’re 10 or 11 years old. We were a little behind, all the guys of my generation,” Frank said.

Unlike many Danish players, Frank decided to stay at home and cut his teeth in the domestic professional league. Looking back, he feels that this was the right call to have made at the time.

“Sometimes I think that the guys are leaving maybe a little too early. I was one of the guys who maybe played 15 minutes the first season of my career in SønderjyskE … That was tough but young guys nowadays, if they don’t get the opportunity from day one, they just leave because the opportunities are there all the time. Sometimes I think its better to stay in a pro league than go to  Sweden and play junior hockey,” Frank remarked.

Staying with SønderjyskE meant being part of the team’s most successful run in its history. The club from Vojens captured five domestic titles between 2009 and 2015 and looked to be unshakeable from the peak of Danish hockey.

“We just had a good group. For sure there were teams we battled against like Aalborg, Herning, and Esbjerg that just started coming up, so it was still tough to win but it was fun. Sometimes we were asked, 'isn’t it tiring to win that much?'.

I think we had a run one year when we won 20 or 21 games in a row, and even us players were sitting in the locker rooms sometimes talking about how it could be nice just to lose a game! We want to win every game and go for championships. When the day comes when I don’t have the feeling that I want to win or do that little extra thing, then I can just retire instead because its not worth it,” Frank commented.

However, other teams have made their mark in Denmark over the last five seasons. Teams from Esbjerg, Rungsted, and Aalborg, have stepped up to the plate and left the Vojens club without the taste of Danish success.

SønderjyskE finished the Danish regular season, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in third place, and Frank said that spirits were high going into playoffs before the season was suspended.

“I was gone for a couple of years, then came back, and they started from the beginning, bringing in new coaching, and with a three year plan. We were good. We made it to the final in the first year and lost. Last year we did well in the regular season, we were ready for the playoffs, and also won the Continental Cup to qualify for the Champions Hockey League,” Frank said.

The SønderjyskE forward also said that gone are the days when only one or two clubs were challenging for the domestic title each year, highlighting the incredible parity in the Metal Ligaen.

“Of course, we think down here we are a big team, but in the same way we also know that Danish teams have been getting better, and are getting money. Sometimes at the start of the season there are 1 or 2 teams that could be champions. But last season in Denmark, there were 7 or 8 teams that could have been champions, because everyone was beating everybody,” Frank said.

The domestic challenges may be mounting, and SønderjyskE certainly have their work cut out by facing off against the winners of the Swiss National League regular season in the Champions Hockey League Round of 32, but Frank said that all the team can do is put in the maximum amount of effort, and good things may just happen.

“Of course, you need some luck, but if we have that luck we can maybe surprise them in the first game and then you never know how the second game will go.

It will be tough and they’re the favourites, but we’ll go into the games with a smile on our face and happy to play such a good team,” Frank concluded.