I know the Red Wings aren’t having their best year, but I’ve always admired the organization and it’s always a treat to get to see them play the Wild in St. Paul. I wrangled a last minute ticket from my aunt and uncle and got to see the return of Brent Burns to the Wild lineup. I thought he played pretty good for a guy coming back from missing 29 games. Gotta love his fitness quote in the Strib too:

“I can wash your shirt on my abs right now.”

We were one of the first 6,000 at the X who received the towel pictured above. I don’t really remember anyone waving them, but the start of the game was a little hard to watch. Harding was playing really well before he got hurt and it was extra painful to watch Bertuzzi with the breakaway goal.

As we’ve learned this year, never leave early. I usually would be happy with the loser point in this situation, but the Wild had so many good chances to win in the OT and shootout, that it really felt like a letdown.

Not much else to report – parking was a little harder to find for some reason and the pretzel I ordered was a little stale and way too salty. Oh yeah, I still long for free wi-fi in the building – will that ever happen?

My third day of ski-bum week was spent at Wild Mountain outside of Taylor’s Falls. I read on their web site you could get a free pass on your birthday and figured that was too good a deal to pass up. The weather wasn’t the greatest (misty fog that never burned off), but the temps were OK and the snow quality was good.

I figured my last visit to Wild was likely 20+ years ago and the ski area is basically the same – four chairlifts and a nice variety of runs, including Ego Alley, North and South Wild, Bear, Competition and the infamous Wall. The inside of the chalet was like a time warp back to high school ski trips, although now I can go in the Eagle’s Nest. They cooked me a mean French Dip sandwich with fries for lunch and had free wi-fi, which was very useful in an area of poor cell coverage.

There is now a tubing park just south of the main skiing area and they still have the alpine slide tracks. I think the water slides and small water park near the chalet are new since I was there last. I sort of forgot they are seven miles north of Taylor’s Falls along the river, so it takes about 90 minutes to get there from the south metro.