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WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL LENS

By HELENE ELLIOTT
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The English have their hooligans, but Denmark has roligans--and the difference goes well beyond spelling.

Whereas hooligans are infamous for their destruction, the roligans--a play on the Danish word rolig, which means calm--are a genial bunch who charmed the people of Lens when they visited for Denmark’s opener against Saudi Arabia.

Many of the roligans wore scarves with the colors of the local French club, RC Lens, and they limited their activities to good-natured singing of the Danish national anthem and waving red and white banners.

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A regional newspaper, Nord Eclair, described Lens as “the capital of Denmark,” at least for that day.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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