THN Archive: A New Dane

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A New Dane—Oct 4, 2021 - VOL. 75, Issue. 04 - Ryan KennedyIN AUGUST, THREE SLOTS were still available for the 2022 men’s Olympic hockey tournament, as qualification events pitted hopeful national squads against one another.

Two of those berths were taken by countries who have made the Olympic field before, Slovakia and Latvia.The third entry for Beijing was a first-timer: Denmark.The Danes joined the IIHF in 1946 but had never made the Olympics until now, a tidy 75 years later.

While the progress may be subtle to outsiders, Danish hockey is now in its golden age. The revolution is being led by NHLers such as Winnipeg’s Nikolaj Ehlers – who topped the qualification tournament with nine points in three games – and Columbus mainstay Oliver Bjorkstrand, who popped in five points of his own. “It’s a huge honor to be a part of,” Bjorkstrand said.

“It’s been a long time coming for Denmark, we’ve tried to make it there for a long time now. We’ve been in Group A of the men’s World Championship for a lot of years, the juniors have done well and made it to Group A and the last step was to make the Olympics. Speaking for everyone in Denmark hockey, we’re super pumped about it.”

Bjorkstrand is part of a fascinating subset of Danish players who all come from the small city of Herning. Even with a population of just 50,000, Herning boasted five members on the Olympic-qualifying team and will almost certainly add a sixth for Beijing in Carolina goalie Frederik Andersen.The story of Herning is so interesting that one local author and filmmaker made a documentary about the phenomenon entitled The Hockey Miracle in the Middle of Nowhere.

Rasmus Ankersen travelled the world for his 2012 book The Gold Mine Effect, which saw him investigate why certain places produce a disproportionate number of eli