NHL.com

August 8, 2018 was a notable day for the Danish ice hockey, because this day Washington Capitals' forward Lars Eller brought the Stanley Cup to his hometown Rødovre in Denmark. Eller became the first Danish player to win the main ice hockey trophy in the history and to bring it to Denmark.

29-years-old Lars Eller had his career-best season with 38 (18+20) points in 81 regular-season games and 18 (7+11) points in 24 playoff games for the Washington Capitals.

But the most important is that Eller scored the game-winning goal in the third period of the final game, which made his team the Stanley Cup Champions last year.

Lars Eller started in the NHL back in 2009 with the St. Louis Blues, then continued with the Montréal Canadiens (2010-2016) and won the Stanley Cup in his second year with the Capitals. Eller was one of the six Danish players in the League last season. 

In his nine-years-long NHL career, Eller had 219 (103+116) points in 604 regular-season games and 41 (13+28) points in 74 playoff games.

In general, ice hockey in Denmark develops very well last time. About ten years ago there were no Danish players in the NHL, and until 2003 Danish National Team played in Division I of the World Championships or lower. Their highest result at the World Championships is reaching quarterfinals in 2010. It's almost 5000 ice hockey players in Denmark while the total population of the country is 5,5 million people, this kind of sport becomes more and more popular there, and the local league Metal Ligaen grew to a historic number of 11 teams this year.

So it's a logical consequence that after all the successes of the Danish hockey program this country got the right to host the World Championship in the elite division this year. The World Championship took place in Copenhagen and Herning, Sweden became the World Champion and Denmark itself had the 10th place at this home tournament. 

And just a month later Lars Eller won the first Stanley Cup for Danish players in history. A nice year for Danish hockey. It's no doubt hockey program in this country goes the right way and we will see new young talents from Denmark in the future.