Playing hockey in Raleigh at Lenovo center is pretty sweet, but!<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the Olympics so I think it\u2019ll be that much better,\u201d Jaccon Slavin said.<\/p>\n
Nothing beats playing for your home country in the Olympics\u2026 with your felllw countrymen.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time you see those guys you share a special bond,\u201d Sebastian Aho said.<\/p>\n
It’s a chance to go for the gold, snd platform your home country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always proud to put on the Danish national team jersey and represent Denmark,\u201d Nikolaj Ehlers said.<\/p>\n
Five Carolina Hurricanes players will have the honor and the privilege to suit up for their country\u2019s as hockey is set to begin in the 2026 Winter Olympics. THE USA, Canada, Finland\u2026 and Denmark are all represented.<\/p>\n
Hurricanes Defenseman Jacob Slavin gets to represent the USA and is looking forward to the high level of competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh skill, high pace, anyone can make a play,” Slavin said. “So you just have to be prepared for that, but as a defenseman you can have fun with that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finland is a small country of just 5.6 Million people or about half the size of north Carolina<\/p>\n
So Canes center Sebastian Aho grew up with many of his Finnish teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to represent Finland in the Olympics it\u2019s an unbelievable honor and to put that jersey on I feel like the whole country united behind us,” Aho said. “It\u2019s a big part of Finnish culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And what\u2019s better than one Dane? Two Danes! The Canes Great Danes Nikolaj Ehlers and Freddie Andersen will be familiar faces for one another. as they represent Denmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know most of those guys and were like a family,\u201d Ehlers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of great players went before us to get Denmark to where it\u2019s at right now,\u201d Andersen said.<\/p>\n
Canadian player Brayden point is dealing with a lower body injury. So on February 5th Canada announced his replacement: Seth Jarvis. Oh, Canada, why\u2019d you take so long to include Jarvy?!<\/p>\n
Either way there are five Canes playing for four different countries. All looking to medal.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go canes!<\/p>\n
More On This<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Chris Lea, WRAL-TV Sports Anchor\/reporter Playing hockey in Raleigh at Lenovo center is pretty sweet, but! \u201cThis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,1239,5,195,1238,54071,4,794,2602,1174,1177],"class_list":{"0":"post-453754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolinahurricanes","11":"tag-frederik-andersen","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-hurricanes","14":"tag-jaccob-slavin","15":"tag-nc-olympics","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nikolaj-ehlers","18":"tag-olympics","19":"tag-sebastian-aho","20":"tag-seth-jarvis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116048796345947610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}