Danish national team legend Jesper Damgaard (left) joins former head coach Mikael Lundstrom and IIHF President Luc Tardif at the Contributors' Ceremony at the 2025 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.
photo: PHOTO: © INTERNATIONAL ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION / ANDRE RINGUETTE
Jesper Damgaard knows how to embrace change while also staying close to his roots. The former Danish national team captain, 50, relocated earlier this year to Siena, Italy, where his wife Jenny is working in football. Yet he was overjoyed to come home during the 2025 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, co-hosted by Herning, Denmark and Stockholm, Sweden.
Damgaard – the all-time leader in Danish national team games (265) – witnessed his nation recording an all-time best fourth-place finish after a 6-2 bronze-medal loss to Tre Kronor in the Swedish capital. He also took part in the celebrations as his 2002-03 Danish national team was honoured at the Contributors’ Awards during the IIHF’s two-day Hall of Fame event.
With Damgaard setting the tone as their top defenceman, that team ended a 54-year Danish absence from the top division of the Ice Hockey World Championship. It secured promotion from Division I in 2002 with crucial wins over Norway and Hungary and then stunned the world in 2003 by beating the U.S. 5-2 and tying Canada 2-2 at the Worlds in Finland. The Danes have never been relegated since.
Damgaard was the recipient of the IIHF’s 2018 Bibi Torriani Award as an outstanding player for an up-and-coming hockey nation, and the achievements of 2002-03 form a big part of his legacy. Yet he also appreciates that his group couldn’t have done it without head coach Mikael Lundstrom. The Swede, whose varied coaching resume also included the national teams of France and Kuwait, would guide Denmark through the 2006 Worlds.
“He came in with a whole new mentality,” Damgaard told IIHF.com. “We wanted to be a little bit more professional, but also wanted to keep the Danish way. And the Danish way is still working. It's like, when we come together, we have fun, and when you have fun, you play better, and then you want to do it even better for the guy sitting next to you. So he understand that we wanted to keep our Danish way, and he brought in that professionalism. That's why we had success.”
The family feeling within Danish hockey is a through line that connects the 2002-03 national team to the Cinderella squad who made history in Herning and Stockholm.
“The group chemistry at that time was almost the same as we have today,” said Damgaard, who wore the “C” for Denmark at 11 IIHF men’s tournaments before retiring at 35. “The Danish people are good at coming together like a group, being happy together, like a big family. We play with our hearts for the lion on our jersey, and that's why the guys are here today. You see a guy like Nikolaj Ehlers. Twenty-four hours after he's out of the NHL playoffs, he comes back right away, because he wants to play with our guys. We're so proud to play for our country.”
That pride was overwhelming in 2025. After the Danes edged Germany 2-1 in a shootout to advance to the quarter-finals, they upped the ante by upsetting Canada 2-1 in that do-or-die game. Nick Olesen’s last-minute goal eliminated a stacked Canadian team with NHL legends like captain Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, and Ryan O’Reilly. The shock value ranks with the U.S.’s 1980 “Miracle on Ice” win over the Soviets at the Lake Placid Olympics and Belarus’s 2002 quarter-final ouster of Sweden at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
“I would never have believed this,” Damgaard admitted. “None of us would have believed it before the game. It's just unreal. When you saw the team Canada had, on paper, [our chances of beating them] were one in 10,000. But then when they couldn't score in the first period, I felt inside myself: 'Okay, they can't score. It's one of those games. It's close now.' Our goalie [Frederik Dichow] had a good game. And the longer the game went, the more frustrated they got. In the last period, the Danish team was the better team. You saw some big players for Canada who didn't even want to have the puck. It was unbelievable!”
Damgaard now serves on the board of Danmarks Ishockey Union and enjoys staying in touch with longtime teammates like Morten Green, Kim Staal, and Peter Hirsch. They all hope to see their country build on this year’s performance and contend for medals more frequently, as the likes of Switzerland and Germany have done in the 21st century. Player development is the key.
“I think in 2018 when we first had the World Championship at home, we were around maybe 5,000 players,” said Damgaard. “Now we're around 6,000 players [including junior players]. So a little bit more kids have started playing. But still, it's a small country, and soccer and handball are big in Denmark. So it's tough for us. We only have 29 rinks, and in those rinks, we use the ice from six in the morning to 12 midnight. If we want to get bigger in hockey, we have to build more rinks. That's the main thing we need in Denmark to take it to the next level and return again to the final four.”
In the immediate future, Damgaard is excited about making the short trip from Siena to Milan in February to watch the Danish men compete at the Olympics. It is just their second Winter Games appearance ever. They finished seventh in Beijing in 2022. Damgaard – a veteran of 17 World Championships at different levels – didn’t get to play in an Olympics himself. But as a consummate team player, he can’t wait to see if this new generation can take yet another step toward elite status.
Damgaard – the all-time leader in Danish national team games (265) – witnessed his nation recording an all-time best fourth-place finish after a 6-2 bronze-medal loss to Tre Kronor in the Swedish capital. He also took part in the celebrations as his 2002-03 Danish national team was honoured at the Contributors’ Awards during the IIHF’s two-day Hall of Fame event.
With Damgaard setting the tone as their top defenceman, that team ended a 54-year Danish absence from the top division of the Ice Hockey World Championship. It secured promotion from Division I in 2002 with crucial wins over Norway and Hungary and then stunned the world in 2003 by beating the U.S. 5-2 and tying Canada 2-2 at the Worlds in Finland. The Danes have never been relegated since.
Damgaard was the recipient of the IIHF’s 2018 Bibi Torriani Award as an outstanding player for an up-and-coming hockey nation, and the achievements of 2002-03 form a big part of his legacy. Yet he also appreciates that his group couldn’t have done it without head coach Mikael Lundstrom. The Swede, whose varied coaching resume also included the national teams of France and Kuwait, would guide Denmark through the 2006 Worlds.
“He came in with a whole new mentality,” Damgaard told IIHF.com. “We wanted to be a little bit more professional, but also wanted to keep the Danish way. And the Danish way is still working. It's like, when we come together, we have fun, and when you have fun, you play better, and then you want to do it even better for the guy sitting next to you. So he understand that we wanted to keep our Danish way, and he brought in that professionalism. That's why we had success.”
The family feeling within Danish hockey is a through line that connects the 2002-03 national team to the Cinderella squad who made history in Herning and Stockholm.
“The group chemistry at that time was almost the same as we have today,” said Damgaard, who wore the “C” for Denmark at 11 IIHF men’s tournaments before retiring at 35. “The Danish people are good at coming together like a group, being happy together, like a big family. We play with our hearts for the lion on our jersey, and that's why the guys are here today. You see a guy like Nikolaj Ehlers. Twenty-four hours after he's out of the NHL playoffs, he comes back right away, because he wants to play with our guys. We're so proud to play for our country.”
That pride was overwhelming in 2025. After the Danes edged Germany 2-1 in a shootout to advance to the quarter-finals, they upped the ante by upsetting Canada 2-1 in that do-or-die game. Nick Olesen’s last-minute goal eliminated a stacked Canadian team with NHL legends like captain Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, and Ryan O’Reilly. The shock value ranks with the U.S.’s 1980 “Miracle on Ice” win over the Soviets at the Lake Placid Olympics and Belarus’s 2002 quarter-final ouster of Sweden at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
“I would never have believed this,” Damgaard admitted. “None of us would have believed it before the game. It's just unreal. When you saw the team Canada had, on paper, [our chances of beating them] were one in 10,000. But then when they couldn't score in the first period, I felt inside myself: 'Okay, they can't score. It's one of those games. It's close now.' Our goalie [Frederik Dichow] had a good game. And the longer the game went, the more frustrated they got. In the last period, the Danish team was the better team. You saw some big players for Canada who didn't even want to have the puck. It was unbelievable!”
Damgaard now serves on the board of Danmarks Ishockey Union and enjoys staying in touch with longtime teammates like Morten Green, Kim Staal, and Peter Hirsch. They all hope to see their country build on this year’s performance and contend for medals more frequently, as the likes of Switzerland and Germany have done in the 21st century. Player development is the key.
“I think in 2018 when we first had the World Championship at home, we were around maybe 5,000 players,” said Damgaard. “Now we're around 6,000 players [including junior players]. So a little bit more kids have started playing. But still, it's a small country, and soccer and handball are big in Denmark. So it's tough for us. We only have 29 rinks, and in those rinks, we use the ice from six in the morning to 12 midnight. If we want to get bigger in hockey, we have to build more rinks. That's the main thing we need in Denmark to take it to the next level and return again to the final four.”
In the immediate future, Damgaard is excited about making the short trip from Siena to Milan in February to watch the Danish men compete at the Olympics. It is just their second Winter Games appearance ever. They finished seventh in Beijing in 2022. Damgaard – a veteran of 17 World Championships at different levels – didn’t get to play in an Olympics himself. But as a consummate team player, he can’t wait to see if this new generation can take yet another step toward elite status.