Vince Dunn of the Seattle Kraken will be writing a blog for NHL.com leading up to, and after, playing the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic at T-Mobile Park in Seattle on Monday (3 p.m. ET; MAX, TNT, truTV, SN, TVAS).
In his second installment, the 27-year-old defenseman writes about skating with his family after practice at T-Mobile Stadium on Sunday, his plans for New Year’s Eve and the special outfits the Kraken will wear for their arrival on Monday.
The ice was a lot better than I thought it would be. I think you probably saw the pucks look sticky, but I think maybe they were just warm. The conditions were pretty solid for having to maintain such a high standard of ice and I think right now we should just focus on having fun with it. It's going to be a competitive match, but I think both teams are going in with good vibes and that's really important for both teams, to be in a good spot mentally and not worry about how the ice condition and things like that. It's gonna be the same for both teams, whether it's sunny or raining and the roof is open or not. So, it was exciting and I think it's just a lot better than I thought it was gonna be out there.
The scenery around the rink was phenomenal. Just the attention to detail that they've always done here in Seattle, all the extra work they've done to make it visually appealing. So, they’ve done a great job doing that here again, putting in the little details, especially that relate to the city and that's really cool to have that. I'm sure the fans have definitely seen that too.
I had my family out there and it's just nice for them to come on the ice with us. I don't even remember the last time I got to skate around with my mom. So, it was really special for me and for her too. I must have been in my single-digit years since I was skating with her on the ice. So that's special for her just to just take it in and watch me tomorrow. I just know that she was right there too, that’s really special. Everyone had their kids and everything out there. It's nice for them to be included in this because you know we wouldn't be anywhere without them.
For the rest of today, I’m probably going to go home and chill out a little bit. And then we'll be checking into the hotel later after we have a team dinner, so pretty chill. I don't have any New Year's plans. I usually don’t do anything crazy for New Year’s anyways, so I’ll just get some family time, shut it down early and just get ready for the game.
It will be nice to just wake up and get off tomorrow. So, it's nice for us to not have the whole day to think about you know, just wake up and play like we used to.
As for our arrival look tomorrow, I didn't pick the outfits. They're relatable for the city, to say the least.
