It was exciting leaving for the airport last night. I think most of us got there way earlier than we usually would for a flight to get your seats and get all situated on the plane. It was a pretty cool setup, everyone had their sleeping pods and the service on the plane was pretty nice, with some pretty good meals. Most of us got on there, had a bite and within maybe an hour or two, most guys were pretty knocked out. It got pretty quiet pretty quick, which is unusual for our flights because guys are usually awake, either playing cards or watching shows.
I sat next to Kevin Hayes on the trip, and Claude Giroux was across the aisle from us, so we were chatting a little bit. Then Giroux was watching a show and Hayes fell asleep pretty quick. I watched a couple things on Netflix. First it was a few episodes of "QB1: Beyond the Lights," a reality show about three star high school quarterbacks and their college recruitment process, and the new Dave Chappelle standup comedy show, "Sticks and Stones," and then I fell asleep. I woke up as the bell was sounding that we had to put our seats up so I was able to get through the night.
Once we landed in Geneva about noon, we got on a bus for the ride to Lausanne. There was a lot of traffic, and that was when you're trying to fight it a little bit to stay awake because you don't want to screw your sleep schedule up too much. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep on the plane so I still felt better than I expected.
Our hotel is pretty sweet, and my room overlooks Lake Geneva so that's pretty peaceful. I have a bunch of buddies who play over here and have said great things about how beautiful it is over here. My first time over to Switzerland and to see that first-hand was pretty nice.
We got to the rink for practice and the setup felt similar to some of the international tournaments I've played with USA Hockey. Great ice and a great setup for us.
Practice was good and felt perfect for what we needed. We did a lot of flow drills and skating around and trying to get the blood flowing a little bit, flush the legs out from sitting around for 7 1/2 hours on the plane.
We have a team dinner planned for tonight. From there I'm not sure what we have on the docket but I think it'll be a pretty quiet evening.
I felt we all got a little more adjusted as the day went on and we'll get back at it tomorrow.
