Denmark men’s hockey motivated to beat USA in Winter Olympics amid Greenland drama

The Winter Olympics are here, and the spotlight has been on the hockey teams because of the talent they have this year. The two most talented teams are Team USA and Team Canada. There has also been a change when the teams play the United States, because President Donald Trump has taken an aggressive foreign policy stance toward many countries, including Denmark and Greenland.

The United States and Denmark meet in the next game of the Winter Olympics, and the matchup carries added significance given recent developments in Greenland. The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus wrote a big piece about what the next match means for both teams, and while the Danes have extra motivation, the fans are not going to boo the Team USA players.

“Of course, now they’re going to play a game on the real ice, not on the ice in Greenland,” said Kristensen, a reporter and commentator for Denmark’s TV 2 Sport. “Of course it’s special, but I think that a lot of Danish people are trying to split it up and say this is sport and the politics has to be in another way.

“You will not see anything from any Danish spectators or something going specific at the American players in no way.  The Danish people, they know that this is sport.”

“We’re not used to being in the news that much,” said Lars Eller, a forward with the Ottawa Senators who has played 1,116 games in the NHL. “But I feel like every week there’s something new, and whatever was in the news last week is forgotten quickly and we move on.

“I don’t think it’s on any of ours minds what’s going on politically in the world. It’s outside noise and in the profession we’re in, you have to be good at tuning out the outside noise.”

Other Danish players like Oliver Bjorkstrand, Frans Nielsen, and Nikolaj Ehlers say it has been weird to see and hear about Denmark in the news so much, but they do not think much about it.

As much as team captain Auston Matthews may believe that the Americans have what it takes to win a gold medal, it’s games like this that could keep them from doing it.

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