Good day from frigid Chicago, where the snow is starting to fall.
Maybe my eyes were deceiving me, but the Wild seemed to work just a touch harder as players showed off for many of their dads as they looked on today at Johnny's Ice House about a mile from the United Center. Who knew that Kim Johnsson had such roots in Chicago that he owned a rink here? Johnny said there's so many things in his "enterprise," he can't even keep track anymore.
The proudest papa may have been Tom Richards, a former elementary school teacher in Edina. He's been retired for 11 years and said his fulltime job these days is watching his five grandkids play hockey. In fact, Papa Richards was wearing a Breck Mustangs knit cap because his oldest daughter's son plays JV hockey there and got him that hat for Christmas.
I haven't even begun tomorrow's article, but I don't even know where to begin. I've got so much material and anecdotes already from the trip. Just some funny, funny stuff, like Andrew Brunette's open-mike night last night at the team dinner. There was a hysterical back and forth between Chuck Fletcher and Brunette that had players in tears. I'll definitely figure out a way to squeeze that in. Let's put it this way: Fletcher made it very clear to Brunette how much he values "speed."
Uh-oh.
Antti Miettinen's brother is here by the way, and they might as well be twins. Very unnerving. Brunette looks the most like his dad, Dan, "unfortunately." To make clear, that "unfortunately," is Andrew's line, not mine.
Dan and Andrew were doing a Wild TV interview as I was leaving the United Center just now, and they're both in hysterics. If Glen and Travis put that up on the site and it's not clear to you, the reason why is because Mikko Koivu and Papa Koivu were behind the camera making faces and doing the mock loud Brunette-style laugh that we've all grown accustomed to. And guess what? Papa Brunette has the same exact laugh. Unnerving. I always remember how much Marian Gaborik got a kick out of hearing Bruno laugh from like three rooms away in the Wild dressing room area.
Bruno, by the way, says Derek Boogaard needs to bring Len Boogaard everywhere because Derek scored 10 goals in practice today. Len had a better line as to why he should never leave his son's side. That'll be in the paper tomorrow.