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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 were Friday and Saturday.

Stars defenseman Esa Lindell kept a blog this week 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. The defenseman’s final entry was written after the 4-2 loss on Saturday, the Stars second in as many days. He talks about his memories of the trip, a surprise visit from the President of Finland Alexander Stubb and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo after the game, and what lies ahead.

TAMPERE, Finland — It really stinks to lose both games here, but you try to look past the results and at some of the memories from this week.

There were so many good things we did that I will remember forever.

Today, the Finnish national anthem was one of those moments. The crowd singing while the violin played with all of us Finnish players standing on the ice before the opening face-off, it was beautiful, a really proud moment.

I thought our game was better today, we were better with the details. It was a close game, a hard-fought game. I think when we are on our game, we are a hard team to play against. We showed that at times tonight.

After the game, we had a visit from the president and the prime minister in the locker room after the game. That was really cool. I have never met either one of them before, so that was a first.
After we won the World Championship with Finland in 2022 in this building, the president came to visit us, but it was a different president.

This president is also a big hockey fan. He just talked to us about the game and how we are enjoying our life in Dallas and all that. He likes hockey very much and was interested in what we do and how we felt.

It was nice to spend a little time with him after the game. It was very much an honor.

Now, it is time to get ready to go home, back to Dallas. In a way, it’s hard to believe this trip is over, but it’s also good to be going back.

We leave tomorrow and it’s a long travel day back to North America, but I feel it’s easier to adjust to the time change going that way, so that is good.

It’s time to start focusing on getting back and getting back into the games and taking the good parts of our game and working with those.

I won’t take too much comfort food home with me on the way back, maybe a couple of Finnish chocolate bars. They are really good, and I like to have it when I want a treat or a taste of home.

Thanks for joining me on this journey. It was full of great memories. See you back in Dallas.