Jonas Brodin of Sweden will keep a blog throughout the 4 Nations Face-Off from Feb. 12-20.
In his first entry, the Minnesota Wild defensemen writes about his experience so far at the best-on-best tournament, playing on a defense pair with Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning and his preparation for Sweden's opener against Canada at Bell Centre in Montreal on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS).
Being here is awesome. Just to come here and see the guys and talk Swedish and hang out with them, it's awesome. It's a good experience. It's going to be a really fun two days here and we're really excited for tomorrow.
It's pretty cool to be on the ice and look around. There are such good players and it's awesome to see everyone's skill. When you don't play with them all year, you see their skill now when you practice with them. We have some pretty good players from Sweden.
As for my routine at this tournament, everyone here is keeping the same thing to do. I don't think anything's changed. The rink size is the same. It's not like we are playing in Europe at the World Championship, so I think everyone is just going to do the same thing.
Last night we had a team dinner. I don't know about dinner tonight, but we'll all probably just go back to the hotel, take it easy tonight and get ready to go tomorrow.
I'm on a defense pair with Victor Hedman and will be playing on my off side, but it's not a big adjustment. I'm used to it. I played next to Ryan Suter for three, four years in Minnesota on the right side. It's a little bit different from the left side, there are some positives and some negatives, but I don't mind it at all.
Going against Canada, we know that they are really good and I'm sure it's going to be tough. But our defensemen are really good, really mobile, and can skate and can defend against these guys, so yeah, it's going to be fun night here tomorrow.
I'm really excited to be here. It's best-on-best; I haven't played like that in my life before, so this is a new experience for me. I love the challenge. It's what I love in Minnesota, too, to play against the top players. I want to make them frustrated and don't let them have that much room.
