Ehlers describes how he feels to help his country qualify for their first Olympics

This past weekend, Winnipeg Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers helped his home country, Denmark, qualify for their first ever Winter Olympics. Ehlers and Denmark won all three of their qualification games against Norway, Slovenia, and South Korea with the 25-year-old racking up nine points (5 G, 4 A). He said qualifying for the Olympics was one of the best feelings I've ever had.

"Being able to go out there and show that we deserve a spot at the Olympics and actually making it, that was pretty amazing," Ehlers said. "We were all pretty pumped about it, and we're proud of it too."

"The growth that has happened the last six or seven years has been pretty incredible. We made the quarterfinals at the World Championship in 2016, we had the World Championship in Denmark in 2018, and at this year's World Championship we beat Sweden for the first time ever. Now we're going to the Olympics," said Ehlers. "What we're trying to do here with this team is make hockey bigger in Denmark."

Ehlers was also really happy and impressed with the commitment from many of the Danish players ahead of the final qualifying tournament. Several of them met up for four camps, three days at a time, to train in advance of these games.

"The commitment to go out and do that during the summer, there have been guys that flew in from outside of Denmark to come to these camps," he said. "Then we meet up a week before these Olympic qualifiers start. That doesn't happen often. The commitment everyone showed to this year, and now we finally got to make it, was pretty incredible."

Denmark will be in Group B in Beijing alongside the Russian Olympic Committee, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland.

"It was one of the best feelings I've ever had."#NHLJets forward @NikolajEhlers24 reflects on his home country of Denmark 🇩🇰 clinching a spot at #Beijing2022

READ: https://t.co/gTVMPshrwc— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) August 31, 2021

Source: Winnipeg Jets

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