A Ship Fit for a Captain

The first time Sidney Crosby came to Sweden with the Penguins in 2008, the team went to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is the best-preserved seventeenth-century ship in the world, sinking on its maiden voyage and being salvaged 333 years later in 1961.

As the Visit Stockholm tourism site reads, “for nearly half a century the ship has been slowly, deliberately, and painstakingly restored to a state approaching its original glory.”

It’s pretty epic, and Bryan Rust joked that it might actually be the captain’s favorite place on earth.

“I think on the plane over here and when we first knew we were coming over here, he was like, if you're walking around the city, make sure to head into the Vasa Museum,” Rust said.

Though, as Crosby said with a smile, “I try not to tell people too much, just because it's actually pretty hard to describe it until you see it. So, I try to just say, hey, this is one of the things that's worth it to see, and let them kind of decide for themselves whether they like it. But usually, it gets good reviews.”

Rust and Anthony Mantha made their way over after Thursday’s practice, and reviews were stellar.

“I had kind of a blind approach to it, didn't really look into it, and it kind of did blow my mind,” Mantha said. “With all the little details on the boat, and how big it is, it was probably bigger than what I was expecting.”

A tour guide took them around a couple of floors, and she did a wonderful job explaining everything in detail. The guys recapped a lot of what they saw after it wrapped up and again on the ride back to hotel, and said they truly enjoyed the experience.

“My favorite stat of the day is the fact that it was only built in two and a half years,” Rust said. “That’s pretty impressive for a ship of this magnitude, with this much fine detail back then, over hundreds of years ago. So, that's probably the most impressive.”

“For me, it was the amount of cannons,” Mantha said. “It just looks like there was so many for a boat that wasn’t technically just going to war, more to show off, almost.”

Meanwhile, rookies Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke did the SkyView Glass Gondola Ride right outside Avicii Arena. The players have also been exploring Stockholm on their own time, walking around Old Town, going to a Japanese spa, and eating some delicious Swedish cuisine.

“That's what makes these kind of trips fun. You get to spend time with the guys, and you get to learn a new a new way of living,” Mantha said. “Like, Hayesy (Kevin Hayes) is talking about this coffee and pastry thing all day because Karl (Erik Karlsson) brought him yesterday, and then we're here visiting this, which is one of the biggest ships.

"It's just cool, and makes us smarter a little bit, learning a little bit. And we'll go back home, and we can show the kids and the wife and talk about it a little bit.”