Here's What The Penguins Were Up To This Summer

Penguins Training Camp presented by UPMC finally got underway Thursday after a long offseason. Many of the players shared what they did this summer – touching on the most memorable part in the video – with a few guys going a little more in-depth for this story.

Sidney Crosby

I went to Norway. That was a cool trip. Always wanted to go there. Did some hiking there, so that’s a good memory.

Kris Letang

I did Monaco. For someone who loves racing and Formula 1, it’s something you have to do once. It’s a pretty wild experience. I went to the drivers’ lounge and at night, we were invited to different soirees, where you dress up and meet a bunch of people. I went to LA four or five times; Florida; the Hamptons. I spent a full week in Turks and Caicos on a wellness retreat. The food was amazing, the sports – I played tennis three hours a day. My wife loves to relax, but I like to move. Then of course, a lot of training and skating.

Evgeni Malkin

Me, my wife and my son, we went to Turkey and watched the Champions League final. It was an unbelievable experience, great memory. My son was excited. There were almost 85,000 fans. Great game.

Reilly Smith

I had a very busy summer chasing my one-year-old daughter. So that pretty much filled up most of my day. Other than that, it was nice to have my day with the Stanley Cup and enjoy that with my family and extended family back in Nova Scotia, and then just focusing on moving to Pittsburgh and enjoying this next chapter with my family. Definitely spent a lot of time on the phone with the moving companies and things like that. So, we were super excited to be able to make our way down here a little bit before training camp and get everything settled before the season starts. Everyone we've met here in Pittsburgh is awesome and super welcoming. So, I know as a player who's played on a lot of different teams, it goes a long way to be able to feel welcomed from Day 1, especially when you have family coming along with you.

Bryan Rust

Just spending a lot of time with family. Not too many crazy trips or anything, but we have a place on the water, so we just spent a lot of time on the boat, swimming and things like that, just watching the kids grow up.

Rickard Rakell

I went to Spain with my family. Then back home, we spent some time up in our cottage, and also in Stockholm to see my family who lives there. But most of the time, we were up north in Sweden and just spent time on the boat, spent time in the woods.

Jake Guentzel

My child kept me busy. Honestly didn't do much, didn't travel too much. Went to Florida for a week and kind of just hung out at home. Recovered from surgery and watched my little boy grow up.

Marcus Pettersson

I didn't do too much. We were just home most of the time. Spending time with my kind-of newborn, he’s almost seven months, was pretty awesome. One time we went down south to Stockholm to see my two cousins and my uncle and his wife. One of my cousins got married, so we got to take the whole family down there and see them get married. To share that day with them was awesome. They live down south, so we don't get to see him that often, especially being over here working and stuff. So, it was nice to see them and share that day with them.

P.O Joseph

I spent a month at the World Championship, where I learned a lot from some of the guys around the league. Definitely was a fun time to play with Canadians and to be able to wear the Canadian logo, and to spend time overseas visiting some parts of the world that I wouldn't normally visit. But other than that, it was a lot of time with the family, the friends and the people who are important in my life. A lot of golf also, and really, just spending time with people I love back home.

Drew O’Connor

It was kind of a little bit all over the place, but spent a little time in Europe playing at Worlds and then came back. I was in New Jersey for a while doing my training, then spent some time at Dartmouth finishing some classes up. Went to a couple concerts, Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen. Those were great. It was a good summer overall, and excited to be back and getting ready for the season now.

Lars Eller

Moving was probably the biggest sort of event of our summer. It's a big change when you're moving your family and the kids are moving schools, and you're uprooting where you've been for like, seven years. So, we didn't need a lot of events or a lot of happenings other than that, because we knew there was going to be a big change. So our focus has been kind of getting comfortable here, settled here, and try to make your home. That's been our main focus, making sure we took the time to do that correctly and the best way we could. So, it's been it's been great moving here to Pittsburgh. It’s been a great experience so far. I took my daughter to her first live concert, it was Morgan Wallen. We like the people here, we like the neighborhood. School is great, and it seems to be a very good fit all around for our family.

Ryan Graves

Honestly, it was a pretty low-key summer. A lot of training and stuff like that. But in the summer, I like to just chill out. Go to the beach a lot and play a lot of golf and hang out with friends. I have a road bike, ride that around. We adopted a new puppy on Aug. 3, so hung out with the dogs, walked the dogs, things like that. So stay busy, but nothing crazy. Not much traveling this year, unfortunately. But it's a pretty good summer when you can just hang out and chill.

Matt Nieto

I spend my summers in southern California, so seeing a lot of friends and family, spending some time at the beach, and enjoying all of that. It goes by quick, so, try to hang out with friends and family as much as possible. Then when I first got here, I went to a Steelers game, and that was pretty cool.

Tristan Jarry

My wife and I had our wedding ceremony in St. Kitts, we spent about 10 days there. We also went camping, everywhere. Other than that, I stayed home back at my house in Canada. It was a very productive summer for me. It was getting healthy; it was getting stronger. I think just being able to skate freely was a big thing for me – being able to get back to doing what I like to do.

Jeff Carter

Taking the kids to Palm Springs for a long weekend was about all we did this summer, so it was good. It was a lot of packing, moving out of our house in California. It was a quick summer, busy summer, but it was good.

Chad Ruhwedel

We had a family vacation to North Carolina with a bunch of college friends and old hockey buddies, so that was great. Then got together with some other buddies for some golf.