Hello from Herning!
It's 5:45 a.m. in Denmark as I type this. Breakfast at my hotel will open in about an hour, which is good news for my jetlagged body and brain.
As you're wrapping up your NHL playoff night with the Jets and Preds, I'm looking ahead to morning skates in a few hours before Team Canada's preliminary-round debut against Team USA.
My route went Vancouver-Herning-Billund, then a 45-minute shuttle bus ride to Herning.
Since I landed, I've had time to pick up my credential and attend a terrific media reception at Herning's Carl Henning Pedersen and Else Alfeldt Museum. The local organizers gave us a bit of a rundown of the area and its history, as well as explaining why a town of 50,000, tucked away in Central Denmark, is the home of the country's biggest and best arena. Hockey roots run deep here, and they're very proud to be icing a team with lots of local representation—led by Frederik Andersen in net, and also including Herning natives and current NHLers Frans Nielsen and Oliver Bjorkstrand. Do you remember centre Peter Regin, who played 243 NHL games between 2008 and 2015? He's from Herning, too. So is 37-year-old veteran defenseman Daniel Nielsen, who currently plays for the local Herning Blue Fox team in the excellently named Metal Ligaen.
Out of a roster of 20 players, a quarter of them come from this humble hamlet. So I think it's safe to assume that most of the town will be on hand on Friday night for what Danish hockey legend Morten Green referred to as the feature game. In the minds of the locals, Canada/U.S. is the warmup for the much-anticipated match between Denmark and Germany.
Speaking very generally, the Danes seem quite reserved. But I bet Jyske Bank Boxen will be rockin' tomorrow night.
Morten Green also made no bones about the fact that his small nation, with a total national population of just over 5 million and fewer ice rinks in their entire country than in the city of Stockholm, is squarely aiming to at least reach the quarterfinal round in front of their hometown fans in this year's tournament. In 2017, they didn't play in Canada's bracket and ultimately finished sixth in Group A, with a 1-2-0-4 record. In Russia in 2016, they went 2-2-1-2 to finish fourth in Group A before falling 5-1 to the eventual silver medalists from Finland in the quarterfinal.
Because I'm in a part of the country that's not a traditional tourist centre, I am going to make every effort to capture as much of the local flavour as I can on my woefully underused Instagram. Here are a few photos from around the area and Thursday night's reception.
As for the Canucks, Bo Horvat skated on a fourth line with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Jean-Gabriel Pageau in Canada's 6-1 win over Latvia in its tuneup game earlier this week. Word is that the line showed some fire, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the trio can do on Friday.
This year's American team is deeper than usual—typically at this tournament, we see quite a few college players on the U.S. team.
But if Jeff Blashill goes with a fourth line of Sonny Milano, Tage Thompson and Brian Gibbons again on Friday, I like Horvat and company's odds of coming out on top in that matchup.
One other player to note on the U.S. roster: draft-eligible defenseman Quinn Hughes. He skated as a seventh defenseman in the pre-tournament game against Denmark, so I'm not sure how much ice time he'll get, but I'm curious to see how he stacks up against more mature competition.
As far as I know, neither team has made a commitment yet on who starts in goal on Friday. Canada's choosing between Darcy Kuemper and Curtis McElhinney. For the U.S., Keith Kinkaid and Scott Darling have officially been registered. Charlie Lindgren's working as a practice goalie for now, the same as Canucks prospect Michael DiPietro for Canada.
DiPietro picked up another big award earlier this week:
Canucks fans will be forgiven if they pass over the big Denmark/Germany matchup in favour of Friday's other late game, from Copenhagen, where the defending champions from Sweden will take on Belarus.
If you're part of the group that's still worried that Elias doesn't have enough cheeseburgers in his life, check this out:
To wrap things up today, congratulations to Daniel and Henrik Sedin for being named finalists for the King Clancy Trophy!
If the twins win, Henrik will become the first-ever repeat winner of the award—he won it solo back in 2016.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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