You heard me. I was six feet from Tori Spelling in the lobby today. She was with a bunch of other Hollywood types that I recognized but couldn’t put face to name. I’ve done some reporting since, and her husband is one of the guys I saw, Dean McDermott. I was also just a few feet from Paul Sorvino. They’re filming Santa Baby 2 in Calgary, so lots of actors here, which explains why I wasn’t upgraded to a suite, ha.

OK, coming to you from ice-cold, frigid, icy Calgary, where at least it’s not snowing. Owen Nolan did not make the trip to Calgary with a broken toe. As I mentioned yesterday, he tried skating but was clearly struggling. He thought he’d make the trip though, but he didn’t.

Officially, the Wild says he can join the team in the middle of the road trip, but coach Jacques Lemaire said he doubted it. Last season, Eric Belanger had a broken toe and came back two weeks sooner from his monthlong prognosis and did join the Wild on a trip when it was in Edmonton.

Brent Burns left practice sick today. He’s listed as probable, but if he has what Colton Gillies had the other day in Chicago, good luck. If that’s the case, maybe Kurtis Foster, the only other extra defenseman, makes his debut. Although, Lemaire went on in length today about how he thinks it will be some time before Foster returns and how he doesn’t think he’s ready.

Bad timing for the Wild to be playing in Calgary, a place it rarely wins. The Flames are 6-0-2 in their past eight. Also, Jarome Iginla, who’s scoreless in his past three games against the Wild, is always motivated to face Minnesota. The all-time leading scorer against the Wild is two goals from 400 and three points from passing Theo Fleury as Calgary’s all-time leading scorer.

Told these facts, Lemaire literally flinched.

What else? You should have seen Derek Boogaard wearing a power blue sweater in practice. He could have only looked worse in pink. As he joked, trainer Tony DaCosta is mad at him.

Fifty excited Wild season-ticket holders were on my flight this morning here to Alberta. So if the Wild actually wins for only the second time in Calgary since I’ve been covering the team, you know who brought the luck.

The Wild is having a team dinner tonight at a local steak house. My invitation was lost in the mail.

The trades are starting to move now in the NHL. Steve Begin to Dallas, oh, and the big one being Ryan Whitney to Anaheim for Chris Kunitz and a prospect.

Guaranteed: Chris Pronger will be moved now by the Ducks. It’s just a matter of whether it happens before the March 4 deadline or this summer.

Lastly, here’s the Calgary Sun’s Randy Sportak working on his power poll clearly unaware of the fact there’s such a thing as gravity.

OK, that’s it for now. Have a good night, and stay safe back there in snowy Minnesota.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 7:01 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.