Funny scene here. Jacques Lemaire skated over to the glass where the media stood to enthusiastically and animatedly show us that No. 10 was on the ice.

Then, he called Gaborik over and jokingly posed for Blackberry pictures. Very funny stuff. You had to be here.

After Gaborik skated off, Lemaire, who was loving this, yells through the glass, “Tomorrow, I don’t know.”

Of course, Gaborik’s return was almost short lived when on the first drill, Gaborik stepped on Eric Belanger’s stick and went tumbling. He got up unscathed.

“Hey, it’s the only way he’ll know it’s alright, to take falls like that,” quipped Belanger.

Gaborik is up in Vail again being seen by Marc Philippon. Gaborik hopes to meet A-Rod. He also talked a lot about how he spent all his time in Vail rehabbing with St. Louis’ Paul Kariya, who had both hips operated on at separate times. In fact, on Jan. 5, Gaborik said he and Kariya had surgery an hour apart — Gaborik went first.

The bad news? Lemaire says Gaborik is not even close. He said minimum a week or two, and Gaborik seemed to concur. But Gaborik said he knows time is critical and he’ll have to return before he’s 100 percent. But he wants to get closer to it.

As for the lineup tonight against Colorado, Craig Weller is scratched, Derek Boogaard is sick (”maybe he’s sick of me,” quipped Lemaire) and Kurtis Foster is a “maybe.” In fact, he was getting bagged by assistant Mike Ramsey, and when Lemaire spotted this, he quickly ran to the glass to yell for Ramsey to let Foster off the ice. So it’ll be a gametime decision between Foster and John Scott most likely.

I talked to Doug Risebrough a lot this morning about the GM’s meeting and the crackdown on fighting. You’ll read a lot about this in my Sunday column. I asked him why he was so outspoken after the meeting (he was quoted everywhere on how he’s “offended by staged fighting” after faceoffs) and he had a funny story.

Risebrough and Toronto GM Brian Burke were sitting next to each other, and all of a sudden, when the meeting wrapped up, Burke booked it. So Risebrough figured this would be the perfect chance to leave because this way he could dodge the media since Burke, who’s never seen a mike he doesn’t like , would have the media’s attention.

Risebrough swings the doors open, and Burke was nowhere to be found and the media swarmed Risebrough. Risebrough typically tries to avoid the media at GM’s meetings.

Anyway, I’ll have a big Gaborik notebook in tomorrow’s paper, one you’ll all want to read.

Lastly, former Hobey Baker winner Tony Hrkac, 42, has come out of retirement and signed a minor-league contract with the Wild’s AHL affiliate, the Houston Aeros.

Circus Hrkac, who was coaching Concordia University in Wisconsin, retired from hockey at the end of 2004-05.

Tom Lynn, the Wild’s assistant GM and the Aeros’ GM, said Hrkac is a friend of Aeros assistant coach Troy Ward and was looking to return all season.

“We think we have the team to make some hay down there this year and we wanted a Rem Murray-like presence to lead the young guys,” said Lynn, referring to the veteran who played with Houston in 2005-06.

Humorously, when Lynn was explaining to Risebrough his idea of signing Hrkac, Risebrough told me he just finally went, “Do what you want.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am 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.