Wild Gear Burned. Sabotage????

The Minnesota Wild have been hot lately (pardon the pun). After a slow start, they have won 10 of their last 13 games, many of those on the road. So after beating hated Montreal on Thursday they made the trip to play hated Ottawa tonight. That is where the mystery begins.

While practicing in Ottawa on Friday, there was a "truck fire" in which the Wild lost much of their equipment. Some players lost all of their equipment - pads, skates, etc. Here is a list of "who lost what" from Michael Russo's Startribune blog. So now, the Wild have to play the Senators tonight will all new, non-broken-in equipment, probably purchased at a local second-hand shop like Play It Again Sports.

Here is more from Russo's blog on the bizarre incident:

The Wild practiced at the Kanata Rec Center this afternoon in suburban Ottawa. After a short drive back to the Scotiabank place, trainers apparently got out in the parking lot and noticed the back smoky. When they opened up the back of the truck, much of the equipment was on fire.

Firefighters were called to put out the blaze, but much was destroyed. Police are investigating the cause of the fire, but equipment trainers have no clue.

"It was a five-minute drive," said bewildered head equipment trainer Tony DaCosta.

Something is fishy here. You'd expect something like this to happen to the Vikings (right before the NFC Championship game), not the Wild. Very strange. I hope the Ottawa police continue to look into this.

I did take a moment to check the NHL schedule and I noticed that Vancouver played Washington last night so I can't blame them. I wouldn't put this sabotage past anyone on that team. I noticed, however, that Calgary was off on Friday. I think the Ottawa police should check into the whereabouts of some of their players during the day on Friday. You know, corroborate stories - Sherlock Holmes stuff. I also wouldn't put this sabotage past any of those Calgary players.

Assholes.

Jeff