I’ll be back on after Thursday’s morning skate, but I’ll be on Chad Hartman’s show on KFAN at 2:20 CT. 

Coming to you from frigid Denver, frigid when you’re only wearing a sports coat walking back to your hotel.

Practice just ended and I’m going to make this quick because I haven’t even begun writing and “Russo Radio” begins at 6 p.m. CT. — 35 minutes from now — on KSTP.

First things first, Avalanche captain Joe Sakic, the second all-time leading goal scorer and point getter against the Wild, left Colorado’s practice early today with a strained back. He is questionable to play against the Wild on Thursday night.

Wild defenseman Brent Burns rode the exercise bike as his teammates practiced today. His “upper body” injury, which is definitely the “middle body” injury I assumed it was the other day, will most likely keep him out of Thursday’s game as well.  Burns hasn’t practiced since last Saturday morning, so it would be tough for him to go. But Tom Lynn and Jacques Lemaire said it’ll be up to him if he feels OK.

Not much to report to you. I’m doing an Andrew Brunette piece for Thursday’s paper. It’s his first game back playing against his old team, Colorado, and he was real good, especially talking about the friendship he gained with Sakic. He also suffered a personal loss earlier last spring that still weighs heavily on him. You’ll read about that tomorrow.

Some funny stuff:

– Practice began with just coaches Lemaire, Mario Tremblay, Mike Ramsey and Matt Shaw shooting pucks from center ice. They kept clanking the glass. Rookie Colton Gillies join the foursome on the ice and began shooting, too.

I said to Director of Hockey Ops and my Star Tribune predecessor, incidentally, Chris Snow, “This’ll be all fun and games until the glass breaks.” Not five seconds later, Gillies unloads a heavy shot and CRACK! Yeah, practice was delayed.

– As for practice, Lemaire raved about how well the “kids pushed” today.

– Right now, the team is still at the ice eating pizza and attending the NHL’s performance enhancing drug seminar, which rotates through all 30 teams.

– I think that’s it. Just a funny aside about that Stephane Veilleux smooch to James Sheppard, Sheppard also said, “I like doing funny stuff like that, too, but I’d never dare do it in a game. I’d be afraid I’d be sitting the rest of the game.”
Luckily, Lemaire never saw. Sheppard was disappointed the game wasn’t televised in either market.
“I wanted to make the highlights,” he said.

OK, must work, and you can catch me on the radio in about a half-hour.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 6:27 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.