You just sense it by the brisk feel of the air, winter is approaching and thus hockey season is almost upon us. For those of you that are NHL fans like myself. It is the sign of a season long-awaited and with a few games already having been played looks like it could be another fantastic year. For the Minnesota Wild it begins its season with a few gloomy metaphorical clouds hanging overhead as people speculate what the reports from the St. Paul Pioneer Press and others that Wild owner Craig Leipold has lost $10 million dollars since buying the team. There have been a far more critical examination of whether the team’s 409-game long (including all exhibition, playoff and regular season) consecutive sellout streak is real or just believed. In a statement given to the Pioneer Press, Leipold says he has strong doubts about whether the 409-game sellout consecutive games sellout streak will continue and that in a lot of ways he wish it would just go away so they can put it behind them and that Wild fans have a lot of reasons to feel proud of the way they have supported the team. Either way, it does bring up some interesting questions not only for the Wild but the state of the NHL as well. How can a team like Minnesota, who was 10th in the league in attendance with an announced attendance that exceeded 100% of its capasity for all 82 games be losing money? If the NHL is a gate driven league, shouldn’t that have guaranteed Leipold a profit for that reason alone? Apparently not, and that makes you wonder how teams with far more abysmal attendance can stay afloat when the Wild who appear to be doing pretty well that way are still losing money. I guess to me it sounds like a pretty big red flag and certainly brings into question the overall economic health of the league.
In fact, some believe that the 409-game sellout streak could end tonight. Leipold also stated that last year the team was prepared to announce the streak broken on more than one occasion but then the game managed to become a sellout. Team Chief Operating Officer, Matt Majka stated that there are hundreds of tickets still available for tonight’s pre-season game against St. Louis but did not dismiss the possibility of the sellout streak continuing. Currently, Minnesota’s sellout streak is the longest in the NHL and has been a fact the organization has relished flaunting over and over again. So it will be interesting to see how that will play out in the Twin Cities media and Wild fans. No matter what, the games still have to be played and whether the 409-consecutive sellout streak is intact or not is almost irrelevant to the Wild trying to use tonight’s game as an opportunity to develop team chemistry before it heads to Finland for one exhibition game against Ilves of the Sm-Liiga (Finnish Elite League) and then its first two regular season games against the Carolina Hurricanes on October 7th and 8th respectively.
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Minnesota will start its first pre-season game with a roster that will be very close to the one that will likely suit up for its first regular season game. Just as it is for the pre-season of any pro sports league, this is where spots are won and lost and hockey careers can take very divergent paths based on their performance at games and practices. Especially for younger players like forwards Casey Wellman, Cody Almond, and defenseman Tyler Cuma, Justin Falk, Marco Scandella and Elk River, Minnesota-native Nate Prosser this is crunch time to prove they are worthy of a spot on the team. It is also where AHL journeyman also hope to prove they are deserving of an NHL chance; players like forwards Robbie Earl, Warren Peters, Jon DiSalvatore, and Peter Kalus as well as defenseman Maxim Noreau, Clayton Stoner, Drew Bagnall, and Jamie Fraser have an opportunity to show they belong in the big league, for them their opportunities to showcase their talents seem to be more and more finite each season. In each shift or drill an impression is made; is this guy the one we need? Is this a player who can help our team, does he have what it takes, is he giving the effort we expect of him. I think any of us can understand that moment in our lives where we justify ourselves as employees or students, etc and understand how intense that pressure to perform can be. There is no hiding on the ice once that puck is dropped. As I say to my football players all of the time, once the game begins your career is being recorded and the film won’t lie. It will show us who you are at your best and at your worst. So now is the time to show us what you got and without question it is no different for these yet-to-be-primetime players. We’ll see what happens I guess.
According to Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the only “shoo-in’s” not included in tonight’s lineup are Eric Nystrom, Kyle Brodziak, Marek Zidlicky and Greg Zanon. Here is your roster for this evening.
The lineup:
Forwards
Andrew Brunette-Mikko Koivu-Antti Miettinen
Guillaume Latendresse-Matt Cullen-Martin Havlat
Chuck Kobasew-John Madden-Cal Clutterbuck
Robbie Earl-Cody Almond-Brad Staubitz
Defensemen
Nick Schultz-Brent Burns
Clayton Stoner-Cam Barker
Marco Scandella-Justin Falk
Goalies
Niklas Backstrom for 2 periods
Anton Khudobin for 1 period
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