In his wildest dreams, Frans Nielsen would never have imagined such a scenario as being possible. He will be playing in the world championship for his homeland of Denmark right in his own country.

“It’s a big deal, something I think everyone is looking forward to,” Detroit Red Wings center Nielsen said. “They sold a lot of tickets. It seems like they’ve got a bit of a hockey fever coming there. You don’t see that every day.

“It’s good to see and hopefully we can get hockey even more on the map in Denmark, so we can get even more kids to play.”

There are just 27 hockey arenas in the entire nation, so for Denmark to welcome the hockey world to town is indeed a unique opportunity.

“We are starting to produce a lot of good NHL players,” Nielsen said. “It’s impressive what they do with the youth work back there. I think the next step for us is getting more rinks so more kids can play.”

Naturally, all the attention that being the host country brings with it could catapult the underdog Danes to great heights, or it could overwhelm the tiny nation.

“There’s for sure a little pressure on us,” Nielsen said. “If we do well, you see that in other sports back home, even if they’re not big sports for a country like Denmark, that if the national team does good, the whole country kind of comes behind the team.

“That’ll be great to see if we can do some damage. And hopefully it will help hockey. We’ve had a couple of tournaments where we would battle through to the quarter-finals and it’ll be really big and you could feel the excitement from the whole country. Then you kind of get a month away from it and it dies out.

“So hopefully this will kind of get people to watch hockey even more, and hopefully it can stay after the tournament.”

Turgeon Scare
The Grand Rapids Griffins will battle in the AHL Calder Cup playoffs minus a key element.

Center Dominic Turgeon will be out of the lineup indefinitely while undergoing treatment for thoracic outlet syndrome, which caused a blood clot affecting his right arm that was diagnosed Wednesday prior to the Griffins game against the Texas Stars.

Dr. Ryan Turley performed a procedure to alleviate the clot Wednesday evening at St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center in Round Rock, Texas. Turgeon was scheduled for another procedure Thursday before a consultation next week in Tampa, Fla., with Dr. Karl Illig, who successfully treated Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos for a similar condition two years ago.

It is expected that Turgeon will resume his playing career after making a full recovery.

The son of longtime NHLer Pierre Turgeon, Dominic made his NHL debut with the Wings on Jan. 14 and appeared in five games with Detroit.

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