STOCKHOLM -- Let me start my first blog from Sweden by taking you onto our team bus ride from Arlanda Airport to our hotel. It was about a 15- to 20-minute ride and we had our team captain, Gabriel Landeskog, act as a personal tour guide as he gave everyone the lowdown on the city and some of the famous buildings.
Gabe, who is from here, has been talking about our trip to Sweden since the first day of training camp, so he was definitely eager to show off his home country to the guys and, from what I have seen so far, it has definitely lived up to his hype.
It's been a crazy journey the past few days with everything that happened Sunday night in New York.
Having one of your teammates, in this case Matt Duchene,
get traded during the game
was, obviously, a different experience; something I've never gone through. I'm new to the League so there's been a lot of firsts for me so far but that was definitely one of them.
It's unfortunate we lost Dutchy because he was a big part of this team and a great hockey player, but I think guys are excited to put the trade speculation behind them now and to look forward to winning hockey games.
With that being said, it is a really exciting opportunity to be here in Sweden. It is a great imitative that the NHL has taken on..
For me personally, I've been fortunate to travel to Europe a few times in my life and I have loved everywhere I have seen. I've been to England and France and I actually spent most of a summer in Amsterdam when I was 12 years old playing competitive soccer. But, this is my first time overseas to play hockey and I am really looking forward to it.
We arrived at 1 p.m. local time from Brooklyn, which means most of us have been up for more than 24 hours. We are all pretty exhausted, but we are going to try to stay awake for as long as possible so we can get adjusted to the time change. To try to keep myself busy, I left the hotel room and walked along the waterfront for a while today before we headed out for a team dinner tonight. It has only been a short while, but Stockholm really looks like a beautiful city and I look forward to exploring as much as I can.
The good news is we're here for four days before we play against the Ottawa Senators on Friday, so there will be plenty of time to walk around, see the city, see some of the culture, and soak in what Stockholm has to offer!
