Good morning, St. Paul

Good morning, St. Paul, and good morning [watches Jordan Poole buzzer-beater for the 89th time], Insiders.

It’s a chilly but fair day in Minnesota’s capital, and clear enough to look out across Rice Park and see banners advertising upcoming productions of Rigoletto and Kinky Boots hoisted to the facade of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. A quiet Sunday comes on the heels of a raucous Saturday night downtown, when St. Patrick’s Day celebrations meshed with NCHC championship fallout. Just before we touched down, Denver had defeated St. Cloud in the NCHC title game, and by the time we arrived at the hotel, there was a good mix of college hockey fans and St. Patty’s revelers having returned from Xcel Energy Center and the strip of bars adjacent to the downtown core.

There have been interesting functions and celebrations we’ve stumbled across in our arrivals at various hotels across the league. We’ve waded through a prom while walking past the ballrooms after a late arrival at our hotel in San Jose, we’ve waited for elevators with cosplayers during anime and science fiction conventions in San Jose and Chicago and have milled about the lobby alongside college football fans in Raleigh.

The Kings are scheduled to practice at Xcel at 11:00 local time today. Reports from between the Herb Brooks statue and the Kings’ dressing room will follow. WUWTK will follow. Enjoy your Sunday, Insiders. Let’s talk soon.

Flying east.

A post shared by Jon Rosen (@rambleonrosen) on Mar 17, 2018 at 6:41pm PDT