Canadian Rube Burns Wild

Follow the link to a story today on espn.com, essentially after practicing at a local rink the van carrying all of the Minnesota Wild's equipment caught fire. The fire was detected after a 5 minute drive to the arena they play tonight, Scotiabank Place. The fire destroyed almost everything according to another story from the Star Tribune, including all of goaltender Backstrom's gear.

To people who don't play hockey this may not seam like a big deal, but your skates alone take a few weeks of heavy skating to break in. Until they are broken in they can be very uncomfortable and will affect how you play. Skates are the biggest problem but there are others, goalie helmets are custom poured for a perfect fit, a few guys have custom made braces, every player has made tweaks to equipment to make it feel better or protect better.

There's also a psychological aspect to this, many players have equipment they've played in since high school or earlier, usually shoulder pads. Many hockey players are also very superstitious, this much change could affect a player's head.

Pretty convenient that this fire would take place a day before playing The Ottawa Senators, this whole things stinks of a cover-up at the highest level. We all know how much hockey means to Canadian society, they're crazy for it. Three days ago the Wild went to Montreal and handed a loss to the Canadians that had their fans booing by the end of the third. I think the Canadian government is behind this fire in an all-out effort to make sure The Wild don't beat The Senators tonight.

I demand some kind of Congressional hearing or something to look into this, we can't allow these Canucks to push us around! USA! USA! USA!