Howdie, just got back from practice. Very snowy here. I got pelted as I walked to the Igloo, but it was pretty cleared up after practice.

Man, the Igloo’s old. I mean, Jacques Lemaire played there his rookie year

He said the two places he hated to play in the most? Pittsburgh and Minnesota. He said he hated the ice in both arenas. He said the best ice was Chicago, Detroit and Boston.

He also almost tripped this morning when his skate got caught in a huge rut at center ice: “Boogey must have turned there.”

I relayed that to Boogey and he said, “Come on, I’m a graceful turner.”

Couple things:

Uno: That Kurtis Foster feature I wrote today (here it is if you didn’t read), I got a couple emails wondering when that Project Xtreme episode will be on the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Network. Best I can tell you is spring ‘09. There’s no specific date yet, but I’m sure it’ll be replayed often.

Dos: Speaking of replayed often, I got to catch Voices: Bob Kurtz yesterday. Very well done. Only bad part was when they thanked Kevin Falness in the end credits.

Tres: Stephane Veilleux turned 27 yesterday. As a gift, Lemaire huddled the team around Veilleux today and from behind, an unidentified teammate smashed him in the face with an enormous shaving cream towel. Veilleux’s visor and face were covered.

Like he was trying to catch the second shooter, Veilleux spent his post-shower trying to figure out who got him. Veilleux calls me Russ (pronounced Russ, not Roose like everyone else). He tried to get me to help figure out whom it was, and finally said, “Would you even tell me if you knew, Russ?” I said, “Of course, but if I knew, you’d have to read it in tomorrow’s paper.”

Veilleux: “Could have been Burns. Could have been Koivu. Couldn’t have been Butch. He was next to me, so it was impossible.”

Pittsburgh was the same arena where some unnamed Panther (Todd Simpson) stole Mike Sillinger’s teeth once at the beginning of a road trip and mailed it to Sillinger’s wife in Florida. Sillinger got Simpson back by cutting holes in Simpson’s dress shirt to reveal his nipples.

What else?

Everybody practiced today for the Wild. Tomorrow we’ll find out what wins: Defense or offense? The Wild has the best defense in the NHL, Pittsburgh has the fifth-best offense, and the hottest player in the NHL, Evgeni Malkin, who’s got a 13-game point and assist streak. I did a feature on Malkin for tomorrow.

Wild has the NHL’s fewest even-strength goals (22), but third-best power play. Just imagine where the Wild would be without its power play and top-ranked penalty kill.

The Wild had a very loose practice. It held a shootout competition, the one where players basically bet on whether a guy will score or not. If you lose, you skate laps.

That’s it for now. By the way, Pascal Dupuis will play against the Wild for the first time tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 4:49 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.