Bruins @ Wild - 10-11-08 - View from My Recliner with Baby in Tow
Bugger it’s so good to have hockey back! It’s amazing how the shortest offseason of all the pro sports seems to take the longest. The Wild got off to a beauty start to the 2008-2009 season tonite at Xcel Energy Center with a win over the Boston Bruins, 4-3.

Standard Wild Hockey
Tonite’s game had a feel of standard Wild hockey. Slow start and trailing early. Turn it on late in the 1st and through the 2nd period, and hang on in the 3rd to pull out the win.

F Eric Belanger scored 2 goals, which last year would have really made me excited. But seeing him disappear in the 2nd half last year dampers my enthusiasm. Just think if he could score 30 goals…

Newcomers F Antti Miettenin and D Marc-Andre Bergeron scored for the Wild. Miettenin scored on a quick tip play and Bergeron scored on the PP with a razor slapper that bounced through Bruins G Manny Fernandez’s pads. Shades of Brian Rolston.

Great Atmosphere
The crowd seemed to be pretty amped up tonite. Of course I was not there, but it came across very well on FS North. The game was broadcast in HD and I was very impressed with FSN’s telecast. They have a new set of graphics and they did alot of flyover crowd shots. The flyovers did alot more to convey the atmosphere than the typical crowd shots we are used to. Good on ya FSN.

Not So Good on Ya FSN
I was very disappointed in FSN’s coverage of the raising of the Northwest Division Championship banner. As someone who made reference to the NW championship in most of my posts towards the end of last season, I was really excited to see the ceremony. Since I couldn’t be there, I expected FSN to cover something as historic as the 1st banner raised to the Xcel Energy Center rafters. Instead, all I got to see was 10 seconds of the banner as they came back from commercial. After an hour-long pregame of Darby Hendrickson and Kevin Gorg, I was blown away that we couldn’t see more of the banner going up. FSN got everything else right, but they screwed this important nuance up big time.

New Family & the Wild
Tonite was Adriana’s 1st Wild game experience (of MANY). She was pretty good throughout, content in looking at the TV in my lap. The funniest part of the nite was when I was changing her diaper and play-by-play guy Dan Terharr said something about Wild D Martin Skoula. I said, “What, Skoula” in an excited voice, and Adriana started giggling. She’s 3 months old, and she’s already laughing at Skoula. 

Jots

• FSN did a quick interview with former Gophers Blake Wheeler and Phil Kessel. Man, does Kessel sure seem like a dink.
• Wild F Colton Gillies is much bigger than I realized.
• Wild F Marian Gaborik didn’t figure much into the game. He had a couple nice moves, but they did not materialize into any real chances.
• Boston and former Wild G Manny Fernandez could have changed up his mask a little. It’s the same one he had in Minny, but yellow instead of green.
• Wild F Owen Nolan may be old, but I like his spark. I hope it lasts the whole season.
• If you caught NHL Network’s simulcast of Hockey Night in Canada, or if you saw CBC’s actual coverage, you saw that they named a winner of the contest for the new theme song for HNiC, in front of a live audience. I thought it was actually pretty cool. Some random guy, wins the contest for composing the theme song. They cut to the new video intro, with his song accompanying. Had to be an awesome feeling for him. And the video intro is actually pretty cool, with computer animations of some of the most memorable moments in hockey history. They even simulated a faceoff between Sidney Crosby and Wayne Gretzky. Very cool.

Next on the Docket – Wild @ Thrashers – Tues 10-14-08
It is difficult to make predictions on individual games this early in the season. So, I will go with the home team here. Thrashers should win; Thrashers 4 Wild 2.