I have a confession to make.

I’d be lying if I said I was writing this indoors. I’m actually on the 26th floor of a hotel writing outside on a patio. 

Sorry. But it’s too nice to be locked up in a hotel room.

If I could get somebody to make me a Pina Colada, I would.

I’m starting to crave a Wild-Sharks first-round matchup

So, every Wild player practiced after the team’s 3 1/2-hour flight here today. It was an optional practice, so that either says the team’s focused for its game against San Jose tomorrow or they just needed to get the blood flowing after the long flight. Or, a bunch of players will be pulling an optional in the morning.

In the coming days, I’ll be writing more in depth on the Wild’s suddenly flexible practice schedule. Basically, Jacques has put it in the player’s hands to decide when they want to skate.

The vets LOVE it with a captial L-O-V-E.

I’m doing a feature on the Koivu-Veilleux-Radivojevic line for tomorrow’s paper. Not only are they shutting down opposing top lines these days, they’re chipping in offensively.

Practice was a lively one. Not much happened, other than Brian Rolston taking a huge slapshot off Josh Harding’s melon. His mask exploded.

The coaches, Harding, Benoit Pouliot and Todd Fedoruk spent several minutes on the ice picking up nuts and bolts.

But Harding’s OK.

“Don’t be a goalie,” Rolston said as he left the ice.

The Sharkies are at LA tonight, so it’ll be the first of two times on this trip that the Wild will get an opponent playing on the second of back-to-backs. Vancouver plays in Edmonton the night before the Wild plays there.

Tomorrow will be interesting. The Wild is winless in six vs. San Jose and has dropped the first game in eight of the past 10 multi-game road trips.

OK, I better get writing because I have to fight traffic out to Berkeley tonight. It’s getting chilly. I’m thinking 66 degrees, but the wind chill’s down around 60.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Practice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.