Good afternoon. Just got back from Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub, where if you haven’t been there for awhile, they’ve got a great lunch salad bar. Might be the best deal in town (and this isn’t even a paid endorsement).

As mentioned on the earlier blog, Derek Boogaard is out indefinitely with a concussion. Coach Todd Richards thinks in the Columbus exhibition game that Boogaard was nailed in the chin with a stick after a check. Concussions are unpredictable, and Richards said the Wild doesn’t know yet the extent of Boogaard’s injury. He said it could be a week or two, could be a month or two.

If Boogaard misses the start of the season, the fighting will likely fall onto 6-foot-8 defenseman John Scott. I wrote a story on Scott for Thursday’s paper, which I highly recommend. Scott’s a character, and he told a couple really funny anecdotes about Jacques Lemaire and Mario Tremblay.

I mentioned this on the blog before, but injured Mikko Koivu, Andrew Brunette, Craig Weller and James Sheppard practiced today, but only Sheppard will play Thursday against the St. Louis Blues.

Petr Sykora (ankle), Pierre-Marc Bouchard (ill), Shane Hnidy (groin) and Benoit Pouliot (groin) didn’t practice and won’t play.

Tickets remain for Thursday’s game, including $26 upper-bowl tickets.

Also, fans who bring a new or used hockey equipment item to donate will receive a voucher redeemable at the arena box office for a lower-level Wild game ticket for any home game between Oct. 6 and Dec. 31.

Included among the regulars scheduled to play Thursday are Martin Havlat, Brent Burns, Cal Clutterbuck, Kim Johnsson and Eric Belanger. Goalie Niklas Backstrom is expected to play 60 minutes.

Also, I think I mentioned earlier, but Wade Dubielewicz and Duncan Milroy cleared waivers and were assigned to AHL Houston.

As that Barenaked Ladies’ song, ‘Some Fantastic’ goes, “Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,Bye-Bye,.”

I think the next line is “Self respect,” so scrap that. Adios�

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.