Thatcher Demko is a goaltender playing his freshman season with Boston College. The 6-foot-3, 190-pounder played his minor hockey in southern California before joining the United States National Team Development Program last season. Demko has offered to maintain a blog for NHL.com that will chronicle his season leading up to the 2014 NHL Draft.

It was a fun time in Philadelphia, but obviously it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to. That's how it goes sometimes.

We got into town late Tuesday night. We had some press conferences Wednesday morning followed by a practice. It was good to get on the ice.

It was my first time in Philadelphia and it was awesome. It's a great city with a lot of history to it. We got to walk around a little bit before the media stuff Wednesday. It was pretty cool to see the statues and some of the buildings. It was a good experience.

The best part was going down to the Philadelphia Art Museum and seeing the Rocky statue. No one ran up the stairs; guys were saving their energy.

The mayor of Philadelphia came down and that was cool. Then we had a banquet at the Franklin Institute, another museum, and that was awesome. We had the banquet right where this big statue of Benjamin Franklin was.

Jeremy Roenick came down to talk to us and that was pretty cool. He had a lot of good insight. He said to live in the moment because you never know when you're going to be able to get back here. Most guys only get to do it once. He was just saying to soak it all in and make the most of it, enjoy it while you're here.

Coming out for the game Thursday I didn't feel any more nervous than any other game. A lot of credit goes to our seniors for keeping it a calm environment in the locker room.

We got off to a slow start in the second period, but going into the third we were tied 2-2 and we had a good feeling. But they got a tip on that power play and that turned the game. We lost but we never gave up. We were down but we ended up scoring those two goals when our net was empty. That speaks to the character that we have in this room. It's a bummer it's all over now.

I know the Combine is coming up, but I'm not going focus too much on that right now. I'm just going to let it happen. I'm going to try to spend as much time as I can with these guys for the remainder of this school year, especially the seniors because they won't be here next year. I'm going to focus on that right now. The Combine and the draft are down the road and I'm excited for it, but my friendships with my teammates now are what I'm looking at.

Thanks for following along.

Follow Thatcher Demko on Twitter: @thatcher_hockey