4 Nations Face-Off blog: Jonas Brodin

Jonas Brodin of Sweden will keep a blog throughout the 4 Nations Face-Off from Feb. 12-20.

In his second entry, the Minnesota Wild defenseman writes about playing in the tournament-opening 4-3 overtime loss to Canada, being on the ice for the pregame ceremonies, scoring a goal and getting ready to play rival Finland on Saturday (1 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

It was a really cool experience, there are so many good hockey players here. We had a good day. We had an early practice, and then kind of a long day with the late game. But we're pretty used to that, and usually we had that in playoffs with the Wild. It was fun. It was a good game. Too bad we didn't win, but I thought it's a good start. They came out really hard in the beginning, and I thought we were great in the second and third.

As for the crowd booing us during player introductions, after Mario Lemieux came onto to the ice, it was so cool to be a part of that. I tried to look around and soak everything in. This is what we grew up dreaming about, so I’m happy to be here, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a win, but hopefully we get it on Saturday.

As for my goal, it was a good play by Victor Hedman getting the puck over to me. I thought I had some room there so I had the shot open. I think Canada goalie Jordan Binnington might’ve been screened, so I was happy it went in.

As for tomorrow, we will probably just have a meeting, just watch some video of what we can do better, and then just go for dinner, relax and get ready for practice on Friday.

And now we get ready to play Finland. I love that. It's always been awesome growing up, since I was under 16, we starting playing against them, so they're always fun games, and it's a lot of emotion in that game for sure.