China Games blog: Brad Marchand

The Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins are participating in the 2018 O.R.G. NHL China Games. They played their first preseason game in Shenzhen on Saturday, won 4-3 in a shootout by the Bruins, and will play their second in Beijing on Wednesday (7:30 a.m. ET; NBCSN, SN). Bruins forward Brad Marchand will detail his experiences on the trip in his own NHL.com blog. Here is Marchand's second entry, after he and his teammates visited the Great Wall of China:

BEIJING -- Normally the places that you would expect to go with hockey, if you're fortunate enough to get overseas, would be Europe. But never to China, never to a place like the Great Wall.
It's funny: As a group at times, we complain about things. We get a little spoiled and I think we forget how fortunate we are to be in the positions we're in, especially when things don't run as smoothly as usual. But to have the opportunity to come to China and to be across the world and, especially, to see the Great Wall of China, it's an incredible thing.
Today I was able to visit one of the Wonders of the World, which was something I've always planned on doing when I retired, hoping to visit every single one. But to be able to check this off the bucket list with the group, it's a pretty incredible thing. It just shows where the game's going, how much it's gaining ground across the world.

This is my second of the Wonders of the World; I've also been to the Colosseum in Rome. My plan was to, when I retired, take the family on a tour to each of them, depending on what's going on in the world at that time. That may or not be possible, but that was always my plan, to treat the family to something like that. To be able to see the things that are just still in question today on how they're made and just so mind-boggling; I would love to see them in person.
I've always found them fascinating -- the things that can't be explained and landmarks across the world, the architecture and engineering behind them all. I always found them very interesting, and I always wanted to visit all of them.
The pyramids are at the top of my list. I have a huge interest in ancient Egyptian times and the mummies and the kings and all that. At Christmastime, my wife, Katrina, will buy me all the old documentaries on all the old pyramids and tombs. I'm a bit of a history buff with that stuff.
Today was actually a little surreal. I sat there on the Wall and I tried to picture what it would be like way back in the day when they were building it; how difficult it was, how long it took them, just how they were able to manage to do it. You sit there and you see the way it winds through the mountains and how narrow it gets and the peaks that it goes over, it's just incredible that people were able to do things like this way back when they didn't have all the technology of today.
It's mind-boggling to be there and to be on top of it, to actually take that minute to sit back and realize that we're across the world and I'm on the Great Wall of China, sitting there having a beer with the guys on the Great Wall. I never, ever thought I would do that.
I've found myself a lot over the last two years realizing where I'm at in my career and realizing how quick it's going by and becoming closer with some of the older guys, like David Backes and Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara, realizing how quick things end. I'm trying to step back -- I spoke to former teammate
Chris Kelly
a lot about this -- but stepping back and taking in what we go through. Because what we go through is not an everyday life. It's not normal and it's not real, I guess. So when we go through these things -- things like this -- we don't realize how incredible it is. You take it for granted. The way that we traveled here, on the team charter, people don't do that. When I retire, I won't do that. It's not normal. It's the 0.1 percent of the world that actually lives that way. So to be able to do those things and to be part of things like this, it's very easy to just let it go by and not appreciate it. I've really tried to step back and take it all in, even in the moments out with the guys, to really appreciate what we're doing and what we're experiencing.

I think it started by talking to guys who are getting toward the end of their career, like Chris. We rush through this career and it ends abruptly for the most part. It's been almost a decade for me. I hope I have a long time left, but you can't plan that and you have no idea how quickly it's going to come to an end because of so many different factors. You can't plan your future.
Speaking with those guys and realizing that and realizing how quickly it all comes to an end has really sparked some of these thoughts and this appreciation. I think having kids also changes the way you view things, so that has really helped me see things a lot more clearly.
I remember being 20 years old and I'm living by myself for the first time with my buddies and what you're worried about day to day is what am I going to eat for dinner? I don't know how to cook, so I've got to get canned food. Those are the only worries you have in the world. You're not concerned about how long your career is going to be or what you're going to do after or where you're going to be in the world. But as you get older, these things become more of a reality. You start to really try and figure that out. You start to appreciate things more. That's what I'm trying to do.