Wilderness Walk: GAMEDAY

Intrepid Managing Editor of the Hockey Wilderness, Joe Bouley, found himself wondering which of his many talented writers was due to provide the Wilderness Walk on October 5, date of the Wild’s first regular season game. Imagine his chagrin when he realized that it was, in fact, that not very talented writer Velgey, a.k.a. me!

“Eh, better make a change there,” Joe thought to himself. “I think he did last year’s first walk of the season too. It wouldn’t be fair to let him have two in a row. I’ll just send him a messa-”

“Hello, Joe. I’ve been expecting you.” I swiveled around in Joe’s office chair. Despite turning 15 degrees past the point where I could comfortably view the look of shock and terror in Joe’s eyes that looked remarkably similar to mild annoyance, I was pretty pleased with the overall effect. “Thinking of replacing me as the writer of today’s Wilderness Walk? I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, uh... hi Velgey. I was going to bring that up with you, although we should first talk about you using me as a character in poorly thought out writing devices. Any way, I was going to see if The Noogie wanted to handle the Walk today.”

“Oh that won’t be possible. I sent The Noogie a cute husky video. He’s been watching it on repeat for the last 18 hours straight.”

“Which one? There are so many!” Joe was growing increasingly uneasy, both with my undermining him and with the length of this Walk intro.

“The one where

“I’ve seen that one. It’s super cute.”

“So cute.”

“Alright, I appreciate that you really want to do the Walk, Velgey, but I think it’s somebody else’s turn.” Joe underestimated my commitment to doing the first gameday Walk of the season and to doing this bit.

“Joe, it can only be me. Jim Dowd’s Pants is busy with the pregame post. I asked mntrumpterguy

“Yeah, it’s like eight hours ahead or something. It’s the late afternoon there.” Joe displayed an uncanny knowledge of time zones, but fortunately I had already asked Kine to not take away my Walk. #Europeanresidents=brothers4eva

Joe relented at last. “Alright, Velgey, fine. You can do the Walk. Just don’t screw it up with a really long, weird intro, okay?”

“I promise nothing.”

It’s finally here! The beginning of the new season is finally here. The Minnesota Wild visit the Detroit Red Wings and their new digs, the Little Caesers Arena. That fever dream of an intro was my attempt to remind everyone of just some of the great people here at Hockey Wilderness that will be covering the Wild, the rest of the NHL, the Baby Wild (thanks dsmcaptive), women’s hockey, some college and high school hockey, and more. There’s a lot of talent and dedication that goes into this site, including the participation of you, the readers of Hockey Wilderness. If you haven’t already, consider signing up as a member of SBNation so you can join in on the gamethreads, comment on articles, and even write your own Fanposts.

Now onto the Walk!

Wild News

Selfish desires: Wild’s Charlie Coyle must pass less and shoot more | Star Tribune

Wild sought larger, more physical players and found some | Star Tribune

Five elements for a successful 2017-18 Wild Season | Star Tribune

Wild know it’s a marathon, not a sprint in hellacious Central Division | Pioneer Press

Wild, Daniel Winnik agree to one-year deal | Pioneer Press

Is Wild’s ‘difference-maker’ Zach Parise starting to break down? | Pioneer Press

Off the Trail

31 Thoughts: What the Jets are doing to make the post-season | Sportsnet

Opening-day rosters, fresh faces and a look ahead for each NHL Team | The Hockey News

Five Bold Predictions for the 2017-18 Season | The Hockey News

Ferrell: 2017-18 Western Conference Predictions | Zone Coverage

The best NHL team you can buy under the 2017-18 salary cap | Sportsnet

Let’s All Give NHL Player Safety a Slow Clap for its Tom Wilson Suspension | The Hockey News

Check by later for the preview and gamethread