A Real Action Sport

The sport is played on an indoor or outdoor pitch, which is about 25-40 m long and 16-25 m wide, depending on the venue. The teams play with five players each and the goals are 1.5 x 1 m and hangs above the water with the bottom bar 2 m above the water surface. A game is played over 2 x 10 minutes with three minutes rest in between and the sport offers some great action for the spectators. Boat and hand tackles, Eskimo rolls, colliding boats and lots of goals being scored. Denmark has about 1,000 players and the Canoe Polo Federation is part of the Danish Sports Federation. Except for the national tournaments, Danish teams also participate in various European tournaments throughout the season.

Canoe Polo – The Sport

It is hard to say how old the sport is, mainly since it has developed a lot throughout the years and not much look the same way nowadays as the used to some 90 years ago. There are documentations of canoe polo being played in regular kayaks and with two goals as far back as in the 1920ies though. There are also etchings showing some kind of polo sport being played on barrels in harbours even further back.

About 40 years ago, the sport got a lot more structure and clubs started to organize the sport in a more modern way. The first international set of rules were published in 1990 and it was also about this time the first official World and European Championships were played. Canoe Polo was introduced in Denmark in the 1980ies. However, the players were not that many and the active clubs were far apart and the sport was struggling to move from only being a fun thing to try or having the children in the club to play for just for fun every now and then.

In the beginning of the 1990ies, the sport started to grow with a rapid speed in Denmark though. The Danish Canoe Federation put a lot of money and effort into training instructors and helping clubs with equipment. There were also players who had played the sport abroad who could help with a lot of knowledge and experience.

In 1999 the first informal Danish Championship was set up, and shortly after that some Danish club teams started to participate in international tournaments. 2001 was the first time Denmark was represented at the European Championship in Poland and since then the Danish National Teams have participated at most World and European Championships. Last time in Canada in 2008.  

Today, the sport is being played in more than 30 countries and qualification is needed to be able to participate at the World Championships due to the high number of nations playing the sport. In Denmark, the sport is played over three division in the men’s class, one ladies division and one junior division. Two international tournaments are held throughout the year in Denmark and numerous regional tournaments during the indoor season.