Welcome to Russia

SOCHI -- Welcome to Russia, NHL.com readers!

The NHL.com staff (myself, Corey Masisak, Dan Rosen and Arpon Basu) made it here this morning and will be here for the next two weeks, bringing you all the news from the biggest international hockey tournament of them all.

We will be sending these digital postcards each day. In them we hope to give you some insight into the Olympic experience away from the ice rinks.

Despite some trepidation, getting to Sochi was a snap. Our plane left at 1:30 p.m. ET Sunday out of Newark, N.J. It arrived at 9:30 a.m. ET Monday. I caught a few hours of sleep and woke up just in time to see the sun rise as we cut across the Black Sea before landing.

There have been legions of stories about hotel nightmares but not so for us. We are staying at the Rusiky Dom (unfortunately no Marriott points there) and have had few issues other than a wait of approximately an hour to get our keys. Seems the copier was broken or some such thing. We had hot water, shower curtains and all the other amenities you could want.

After a quick lunch (potato dumplings and apple-filled pancakes) at the International Broadcast Center, I met up with the rest of the group and we headed off to the ice rinks.

Time for practice. Talk again soon!