Jared’s Blog

Well as I’m sure everyone has heard, the NHL is back on for this season. I couldn’t be happier! Missing a season of hockey was really hard for me even though I’m a relatively new fan. I guess hockey runs in my blood being a MN boy.

The theme these days in the NHL world is new. New draftees, new rules, trades (new teams for those involved). The amount of trading that’s been going on is crazy. I, for one, am having one hell of a time keeping all these changes straight. With no season being played last year there was none of the normal shuffling going on. I got used to certain guys being on certain teams. Paul Kariya just got sent to the Predators, Forsberg signed with Philly, Gary Roberts left Toronto. There’s just been a plethora of activity and that’s just big names. There’s been a decent amount of, for lack of a better word, second rate stars moving around too.

The Wild haven’t made many moves as far as I can tell and frankly this worries me. What happened to our “5 year plan?” I think the fans were promised a consistantly playoff viable team in that timeframe. Looking at the roster right now, I don’t think we’re a solid time. There’s a lot of potential. Who knows we could luck out and some guys could really start to click, but in our current position I don’t think that’s going to happen. We need some veteran help. Veterans provide knowledge and experience that a younger player just isn’t going to have. They are the leaders of the team that those young guys learn from and look up to. Without that we will never be a playoff caliber team. The management is saying we’re operating on a limited budget. While I don’t want to see the team spending wildly (pun intended) I do want to see them spending on something. You can’t tell me after selling out 5 seasons straight we’re not operating in the black. Now I’m going to be a Wild fan whether we’re the #1 team or in the basement, but it sure is more fun when my team is winning and creating a buzz in the league.

One thing is for sure, all this hockey talk only gets me pumped up even more for first puck drop on October 5th. I am really excitied about all the new rules and how the game is going to play with them. I’m sure things will be a mess at first, but I can only think it’ll work itself out as the season goes on.

This may seem like a flashback to last September. Today Gary Bettmann announced the NHL season is officially cancelled. When I first heard about this whole thing at the start of the 2003-2004 season, I thought there’d be no way we’d lose a whole season. As it got further and further I still had hope that someone would crack and we’d see at least some portion of a season. It is really sad that some of these players can’t just buckle down and play some hockey. I know it’d be hard to take a pay cut. You get used to a lifestyle and that’s hard to break. But if I can live off of a 20k/yr job, then they can certainly stand to lose a million off of a multimillion dollar contract. Hell, even the rookie no names make $400,000 - 500,000/yr. Just get out there and play.

The idea of another hockey league stepping in was pretty hilarious a year ago, but right now it seems like a good option. Sure you’d get a ton of amateurs to begin with. But eventually some killer players would come out of the woodwork. You might even see some former NHL names show up to play. I think the hockey fans would embrace it quite quickly and any dissenters would probably jump ship after they saw the NHL was going nowhere. Please someone do something. I want my hockey!

Former Wild center, Sergei Zholtok died Tuesday of a heart attack. Here’s a couple of news links.

NHL.com
Minneapolis Star Tribune

When he played for the Wild he was my favorite player on the team. And from what I read he was a great father and husband, well liked by all of his team mates, and willing to give to the communities he was in.

I’ve made the trip back to college after a great break at home. I have to be honest though, I was getting bored there. I always do. Anyway, I won’t rehash the same old shit.

I guess the first thing on my mind is the Wild. I watched the game last night that ended in a disappointing tie. Ties always are like that. We were playing the St. Louis Blues, who are 2nd in their division. So I guess I can’t complain that much. The first period was awful. We had no offense whatsoever, allowed a goal in 29 seconds, and the ice was weird. There was lots of falling and puck mishandling. The second and third were much better. We even got a nice goal ourselves. But looking more at the long term, we’re doing kinda shitty. 2-2-6-0 in our last 10. 6 TIES! I don’t know if luck just isn’t on our side, or what. Hopefully the second half of the season is little more productive. I say all bad about the Wild. Our goaltending has been stellar. Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson are one of the best duos in the NHL this year. They are nothing short of spectacular.

The last few days I’ve spent working some extra hours at the campus mail center and making some cash. For which I have to get up at 7:20. It really sucks ass. I hate getting up early. I’ve been taking one of the routes in the morning and afternoon too. For some reason, I just dread it. I don’t know if its a fear of fucking things up, or if it’s my anti-social tendancies coming through. The task was just dumped on my my first day there and I’ve done it every day since. All I have to do is go around to a bunch of offices to bring mail and pick up any outgoing mail. I guess when I talked to the supervisor at the mail center, it sounded like I’d be just stuffing envelopes for huge mailings. But they seem to be training me in for all this stuff I’ll probably never do again. On the bright side of things, I’m not just sitting there for 8 hours. I at least get to spend some time walking around. There’s also been plenty of envelope stuffing going on. Between yesterday and today, the rest of the workers and I stuffed a 7000 piece mailing and almost finished another 4000 piece mailing today. Good news is tomorrow will probably be my last day there. And it should be a short day at that.

I’ve been hanging out with Adam a lot too. It’s really nice to have some company while I’m here. With classes not starting til next Monday, campus is really dead. I’d get lonely if all I did was sit around here by myself. On the other hand, I don’t mind having a 4 person apartment to myself. I can listen to music loud all day long, walk around naked, be as messy or clean as I want, and no one is here to bother me. Tomorrow I plan on calling Chuck to see what he’s up to. I don’t see enough of that kid. It’s sad he lives 10 miles away and I only see him about once a month. John should be back on Thursday too. Slowly, I’m sure more people will trickle back in. I’m wondering when Jeff will move in now that Rick is moved out. I expect he’ll be in before Sunday. Maybe Friday or Saturday, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

I thought I’d post here that I’ve been working on a layout for a friend of mine. You can see my progress here. And that’s about it for tonight. I’m sure I’ll update again in the next few days. I’m hoping to get a new review up soon.