© Getty Images

The Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers have taken a break from their North American portion of the NHL schedule to play two games at Nokia Arena in Tampere for the 2024 NHL Global Series Finland presented by Fastenal. The games are Friday (2 p.m. ET; Victory+, SCRIPPS, NHLN, SN), and Saturday (Noon ET; Victory+, SCRIPPS, NHLN, SN1).

Panthers forward A.J. Greer is keeping blog with NHL.com throughout the Global Series, giving fans a taste of what life is like on the ground as they go through the experience in Finland. Greer’s second entry was written after the Panthers took a train from Helsinki to Tampere and practiced at Nokia Arena on Thursday.

TAMPERE, Finland — It’s been awesome having some time off from thinking about hockey the past two days and really enjoying the traveling, the Finnish culture and getting to spend time with teammates.

We had some cool stuff planned and really just enjoyed each other’s company. We went to a couple of saunas and into the Baltic Sea.

The saunas were smoke saunas, which are old-time, old-time saunas. How it works is they take eight hours to start. They create a fire under all these rocks in kind of a small barn and the fire gets the rocks very hot. Then they douse the fire with water, which takes the fire and carbon monoxide out, but the rocks are still very hot.

That creates this kind of smoke and steam and then it’s good for the whole day, so that was an experience. We were in the sauna for about 20 minutes tops. Then you would go into a hot tub, but you do a couple rounds.

It was great. It was like 20 guys in a sauna and in an old wooden barn where it’s pretty much completely dark. There’s a little light just to see each other, but it was a very cool experience.

Then you walk into the Baltic Sea. It was very, very cold. It was one of the colder things I’ve been in, for sure.

Today it was back to work at practice. We wanted to get our heart rates up and the rust out, so we went a little harder than usual and got a good sweat in. Your hands aren’t there because you haven’t skated in a couple of days, but once we got going and we started snapping it around, it was good.

It was about getting our focus back to hockey and four points in these two games.

Everyone has been really happy for the Finnish guys on the team: Aleksander Barkov, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen and Niko Mikkola. You can see how excited they are and how much pride they have in being here.

We’re just here to support them and we’ll go where they tell us to go.

It’s really cool being here with “Barky,” who is from Tampere and is a co-owner with Tappara, one of the teams that play here. The guys have asked him so many questions with him being an owner and what not.

It’s going to be unbelievable to see him play here Friday. I can’t wait. It’s going to be an amazing moment for him and will probably give me chills. I’m happy for all the Finnish guys, but especially Barky being in his hometown.

It’s a big commitment for European players to come to North America to play hockey and leave their families. They don’t necessarily get to come back during the season, so this is a special thing. I think the NHL has done well in integrating these little trips to thank these European players and make them excited and thankful.