{"id":12610,"date":"2026-02-14T06:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T06:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/12610\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T06:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T06:47:08","slug":"denmarks-hockey-team-admits-its-a-little-weird-to-be-in-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/12610\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark’s hockey team admits it’s a ‘little weird’ to be in spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN \u2014 Lars Eller took a long, ponderous pause.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, the news,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not used to being in the news that much.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The we in this case was Denmark. <\/p>\n

The news, as you know, is President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated threats to annex Greenland<\/a>, sovereign Danish territory, citing Chinese and Russian activity in the Arctic Circle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is all relevant here at the Olympic Games because the United States is playing Denmark on Saturday night in the men\u2019s hockey preliminary round in a match that suddenly has a strangely political backdrop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just little Denmark. No one ever talked about us,\u201d Frans Nielsen, the former Islander and the second-highest Danish point-scorer in NHL history, who\u2019s working the Olympics for Danish television, told The Post. \u201cAnd suddenly we\u2019re in the world news every day. It\u2019s been a little weird.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"LarsLars Eller of Denmark and Nicklas Jensen of Denmark controll the puck during the Ice Hockey Men \u2013 Preliminary Round \u2013 Group C match between Germany and Denmark at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena on February 12, 2026 in Milan, Italy. DeFodi Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think [the players are] gonna go out there with anything against [the U.S.]. A lot of these guys know the American guys.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While artfully avoiding giving his own opinion on the situation \u2014 no Danish player was willing to offer up anything resembling a comment on that \u2014 Eller admitted that there could be \u201csome pride\u201d associated with the game back home. <\/p>\n

The current Ottawa Senator, who\u2019s played much of a 17-year NHL career in the U.S., has had friends and family asking him about the political situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople ask, is it the same message over there in the U.S. as it is in Denmark? What is going on? What are they saying? How do they view things?\u201d Eller said. \u201cBut I think you can have a good conversation and dialogue, reasonable, with most people. At least, I\u2019ve had.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

2026 WINTER OLYMPICS<\/p>\n

Denmark, which lost its Olympic opener 3-1 to Germany on Thursday, will be an underdog to say the least Saturday. <\/p>\n

This is the first best-on-best competition for the Danes, who scored the biggest win in their nation\u2019s hockey history in the spring by stunning Canada in the World Championship quarterfinals, ultimately finishing fourth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve got NHL talent with Eller, Nikolaj Ehlers and Nicklas Jensen. <\/p>\n

\"NikolajNikolaj Ehlers of Denmark controls the puck during the Ice Hockey Men \u2013 Preliminary Round \u2013 Group C match between Germany and Denmark at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena on February 12, 2026 in Milan, Italy. DeFodi Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But they\u2019ll freely admit they\u2019re underdogs here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never seen what we\u2019re up against tomorrow,\u201d Nielsen said. \u201cWe played Canada and the U.S. a lot of times in the Worlds. They come with good teams there, too, but it\u2019s not even close to this. It\u2019s gonna be a real test.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut especially up front, there is a lot of talent out there on that [U.S.] team. Who knows? [Denmark] beat Canada last year, right? But this is more on their terms. The little ice. It\u2019s gonna be a tough one tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Team USA canceled its practice Friday, opting instead for a day off between games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Lars Eller took a long, ponderous pause.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, the news,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not used to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27,26,5482,57,2812,135,2739,2740],"class_list":{"0":"post-12610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denmark","8":"tag-danmark","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-frans-nielsen","11":"tag-greenland","12":"tag-olympics","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-winter-olympics","15":"tag-winter-olympics-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}