Professional athletes don't get to the top by accident. It takes superhuman levels of time, dedication, and focus—and that includes paying attention to what they put in their bellies. In this series, GQ takes a look at what pro athletes in different sports eat on a daily basis to perform at their best. Here's a look at the daily diet of Swedish hockey star Niklas Hjalmarsson.

"You have a dynasty."

That's what NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said earlier this month when he awarded the Stanley Cup to the Chicago Blackhawks, their third in six seasons and their first home win since the 1930s.

But while goalies get a disproportionate amount of love for stuffing an opposing offense, credit is due to the defensemen—and Niklas Hjalmarsson was one of the best in the league this season. (His playoff average of 25+ minutes of ice time per game is telling.) Along with those three recent Stanley Cup wins with the Blackhawks, he also played with Sweden's silver medal-winning team during the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

So! What does he eat to stay fueled during the season?

"I don't go on a special diet, I just try to stay healthy," he says. "I try to think smart and if there's anything special I do, I drink a lot of juices. That’s pretty much it."

Breakfast is an omelet with juiced greens, afternoon snack is a juice from Hi-Vibe Juicery in Chicago, and dinner is a steak and salad. Nothing changes. From the start of training season up until the last game of the Stanley Cup, Hjalmarsson doesn’t shake up his meal routine. "That's actually a mental battle throughout the playoffs," he says. "You eat the same kind of food for two months and it gets pretty old but you have to refuel your body. You eat as much as you can but it's a struggle."

The one thing that varies day-to-day is lunch with his wife, which is usually heavy on starch and protein, be it pasta, maybe salmon, or sea bass and quinoa. But usually they share something homemade and Swedish. “My wife is pretty good at cooking so she usually has lunch for me, some kind of traditional Swedish cooking with meat and potatoes."

There may be something to Swedish cuisine. Mediterranean has been a favorite of nutritionists, but a growing body of evidence suggests that a Nordic diet can be just as healthy. Built on nuts, berries, fish, and game, the Viking diet is starting to lure Paleo practitioners who aren't quite ready to eat their way forward a few millennia.

But herring and lingonberries don't have a monopoly on the Swedish palate. Hjalmarsson swears that pizza in Sweden is better than anywhere else in the world, and as soon as he's back home, with another Stanley Cup under his belt, he's ready to binge. "Right after the season I take three weeks without caring at all what I eat, just to get rid of that craving. So after those three weeks I can just focus on working out and being healthy."

Breakfast

Three egg omelette with onion and chorizo

Greek yogurt and berries

Juice made from spinach, kale and romaine lettuce

Lunch

Beef/pork meatballs with lingonberry jam Mashed potatoes

Afternoon Juices

Watermelon, mint, and turmeric

Carrot and jalapeño

Pineapple, pomegranate and ginger

Dinner

Steak

Salad