Amazing how balmy 15 degrees is when it’s been minus-20 all week. I’m about to go for a run. OK, no I’m not.

I only run when I’m being chased.

Long morning down at the X. Just jam-packed with news. OK, I’m kidding again. But it was a long morning.

The most interesting conversation I had was the 25 minutes I chatted with Ducks TV and radio play-by-play men John Ahlers and Steve Carroll about which hotels have the best pens and the best shampoos.

I am not kidding. Twenty-five minutes we talked about this, and it never got old. Just ask Kevin Falness, who looked like he wanted to play in traffic as he listened.

It was riveting. We talked about the pink and green pens at Renaissance’s and the Crescent Court shampoo in Dallas and how great the St. Paul Hotel pens write, but if you take them on a plane, bring some wet-naps because they’re guaranteed to explode.

Riveting, I tell you.

Ahlers, Carroll and Russo — three men who have been covering this league for a long time.

Erik Reitz is the lone Wild healthy scratch tonight. Jonas Hiller, who’s about the size of George Parros’ mustache, in the cage for Anaheim.

Nick Schultz will play Game No. 492 for the Wild, passing Marian Gaborik for good most likely for first on the Wild’s all-time games list.

I chatted with Ryan Carter this morning. He graduated from White Bear Lake High School, the team playing Duluth East right this moment at the X. He hoped to watch a few minutes of the game, but the Ducks have a strict game-day routine, and he needed to get back to the hotel for his pregame meal. But he did address the Bears before their game.

The pep talk hasn’t worked yet. I see the Bears are down 2-zip despite Duluth East getting lost on the way to the X and only arriving 10 minutes before warmup (according to Fox Sports North high school hockey expert Mike Greenlay).

Mike Ramsey, the Wild’s assistant, was heading out to Phalen to watch his daughter, Rachel, and the Minnetonka Skippers play, I think, Stillwater.

I’ll throw some more stuff up before the game, but right now, I need to transcribe, write and pack for Chicago — plus Canadian Bacon’s on Comedy Central!

Good Hockey Day in Minnesota.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Pregame skate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.