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What is Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast?
Her Wild Side combines hockey knowledge with a side of vibe checks. The weekly show will have game breakdowns, any topical news about the MN Wild, and fun things going on surrounding Wild's social media. This show aims to be informative while also sparking good conversation about the Wild and hockey in general without having to keep everything serious.
Hello!
Welcome to Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast.
I am your hostess, Mikki, aka HockeySheWrote, and I am coming at you on New Year's Day.
So, Happy New Year to everybody.
We are in 2020 forward now, and actually, as I'm recording, the Winter Classic is happening.
And, you know, maybe I should be watching.
I heard Sir Mix-a-Lot was on, and I'm a little sad I missed that.
But, um, I just want to say, like,
Thank you for everybody who reads anything I write, who listens to anything I record, who is just around and appreciates my content.
And it's been really great to kind of fall into this.
And in 2024, I'm looking to expand the things that I do and really just get even more into hockey.
Because why not?
Uh, now we're going to have to talk about a few things that are really bumming me out.
And I am sure if you are a wild fan that they are also bumming you out because this home and home series with Winnipeg that we just came out of,
took more from us than the four points.
It took way more from us than the four points because apparently the injury bug traveled to Winnipeg and then came home with the wild because first of all, we already had Zuccarello is still out and Brodin is still out.
Hartman is back and Jared Spurgeon just came back, but
know surprise surprise during that game you know we had gustafson out there and and he was looking a little different and the injury is probably why but apparently during the second period he came over and was kind of like i don't know something's going on i don't like it um and then like surprise to all the viewers at home all of a sudden mark andre flurry is in the net for the third period and gustafson is nowhere to be seen
So he obviously did not play on Sunday, Gus.
And even worse, today we got the news that he is on injured reserve and he will be out for a few weeks.
A few weeks.
Like, in my head, that's like more than two.
Not that we know that for sure, obviously.
I'm not a doctor and also not an insider in the wild world yet.
But so they have called up Zane McIntyre from Iowa Wild and he'll be backing up for now.
The real bummer here is that Jesper Valstead is also injured.
this would have been the perfect time for Volstead to come up and get a little bit of experience at the NHL level, perhaps even start a game, play a period, but he's also injured.
Now, depending on how long Gus is out, maybe Volstead will be able to come up if he's able to heal before Gus.
I mean, either way, it's,
This is a tough nut to crack.
Because not only that, so that is already hard.
That is already hard.
And then right after we have found out that Gus is injured, Kirill Kaprizov goes down with two crosschecks to the back.
And he, it was reliving that moment last year, also in Winnipeg.
When he crumpled under the weight of that Jets player.
It was the same feeling.
It was like reliving that because it was like when you see Kaprizov go down in either of these injury situations, you know that he is injured.
Because he does not.
he does not fall lightly.
You know, he does not, uh, he is not someone who is embellishing at all.
And so you can tell because he is, maybe I should use my, the, my favorite, uh, new hockey thing, which is, uh, he's tough like a horse.
Um, apparently he will also be out one to two weeks is the news that we got today.
So, uh, and then, uh, Vinny Luteri was also out, uh, he's day to day.
So I'm
He got hit with a pretty hard shot on Saturday.
So he's day-to-day.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was back tomorrow.
So we've got plenty of AHL guys up here.
And I'm not complaining.
They have been pulling a lot of weight for the Minnesota Wild the whole season, really the whole season.
And they're doing great.
And I do feel bad, and I hope that –
we're not like decimating the Iowa lineup too badly, but it is what it is.
I mean, there's, there's not much that we can do.
I, you know, as far as I know, I, most of these injuries, they weren't like preventable injuries.
You know, they were like freak accident injuries, but let's talk about the Winnipeg games Saturday.
Wasn't,
Didn't start out terrible, but it ended terrible.
You know, watching the players just injury, injury.
And then, you know, Middleton gets out there and fights.
And so we have lost Middleton for a five-minute penalty while we desperately need him.
Uh, Merrill and Goligoski were having some trouble on Saturday and then Middleton's in the box.
We're basically resting everything on Spurge and Faber and Bogosian.
He's actually been really good too.
Um, but man, that was hard.
And then coming into Sunday, just knowing that it's going to be the same team that was already pretty contentious.
Everything was very physical.
The fans on Twitter were not cool.
I don't know.
Hopefully I don't get any hate for this, but they weren't as bad as the Stars fans, but they were close.
Anyway, so they come home, Minnesota.
I do really appreciate that Pat Maroon instantly drops the gloves.
They drop the puck.
He instantly drops the gloves.
Apparently, when they were interviewing Adam Lowry, who's the Jets player who ended up fighting Maroon.
He said that Maroon very politely asked him to fight, which as I posted, I can just imagine like, yeah, hi, I'm Pat Maroon.
You may know me.
I've won the Stanley Cup three times.
So yesterday, one of your guys hurt Kirill and I'm going to need to fight you today.
And you're going to need to just do that for me, okay?
I mean, he obliged.
And it was just kind of the start of a lot of physicality.
And it actually did not devolve into fights like I thought it might.
It was just very physical.
A lot of hits.
A lot of big hits.
And...
some of that was what caused problems.
Not that they were getting penalties for them, but that it seemed like sometimes they were focusing more on setting their sights on, you know, nailing some guy into the boards versus setting up plays.
And it was Marc-André Fleury's 1,000th game, which is amazing, especially for a goaltender.
For a goaltender who...
you know, there are no goaltenders that play 82 games.
You know, I feel like even if it's a, you know, A goalie, B goalie kind of a situation, you still would have kind of like a 60-30 split or so.
So to have a thousand games, that's incredible.
Because you're only playing, you know, instead of 82 games that you could play a season, you're really down to, you know, I shouldn't try and math this right now, but like 50, you know, you're down to 50 or so.
about right anyway unfortunately minnesota just could not get it together even though it was a very close game but just at the end they just could not get it together and we lost flory's 1000th game which is a bummer i am excited because the celebration is going to be really fun i was at the game where they celebrated alex galagoski's 1000th game
And I've written before about how it was like the most incredible experience because not just like the ceremony part, but you know, his was where he was put in an overtime, which is not a space that he is normally in.
He hopped over the boards in overtime and ends up scoring the game winner on his 1000 game celebration, sliding into the boards.
Everybody's crying.
Incredible.
I would love to have another game like that for flurry where it's just a really big game for him.
The one good thing that I will say with this game on Sunday specifically is that somehow the Minnesota Wild ended up having a face-off percentage of 62%.
That is not like the Wild at all.
And I am of the camp that you don't have to win face-offs to be the winning team.
Winning face-offs, obviously, that's your goal and it's going to make things easier for you.
But
With a grinding team like the Wild, I feel like losing face-offs, they can grind and get the puck back.
You know, it's not as big of a deal.
But 62% was incredible.
Now, I'm starting to assign games a vibes score.
Vibes score, not that it's necessarily about the actual gameplay, but it's like the vibes surrounding the game.
So I had already assigned Sunday's game an eight.
The thousands game, you know, helped up that.
But they were also in their 78s jersey, which not only looks really cool on the players, but also Fleury's got amazing gear to go with that.
So it really just upped everything to an eight.
And I went back and I thought about Saturday.
And you know what?
I rated that one a three.
That's a three on the vibe scale.
All the injuries.
No, I just you know, there's not.
And then like all the junk on social media, I brought that down to a three.
And so this is something that I am kind of putting more into my content going forward in 2024.
By the way, I hate the word content.
I don't know.
It feels like one of those influencer-y kind of words.
But honestly, what else do I call it?
Because it's written.
It's verbal.
It's video.
There's all sorts of stuff.
But just know I hate the word content.
But what I'm putting into my content is more of the vibes side.
Because that is what I bring specifically to this space that is...
unique.
It's like the unique part of my brand.
Anyone just listening, I did the bunny ear quotation marks in the air as I said that because again, I'm not an influencer at all and I don't want to be.
I want to be
I'm trying to think of I had come up with another word that was not influencer, a personality.
You know, I'll take that.
I'll take personality.
But anyway, one of the things that I've been thinking about is, you know, like taglines or kind of how do I describe what I do?
And the one thing that I can come up with is less stats, more vibes.
Because this hockey show, this hockey content is not about the stats.
Obviously, I will mention stats like the face off stat because that was something like of interest that sticks out.
But I am not someone who understands a lot of the stats.
And sometimes it's just, you know, I feel like that's not my area of expertise.
And so I'm not going to try to force it to be.
But the vibes are something I know all about.
And it actually gave me an idea.
Someone was posting on Twitter about how they kind of wanted to be a Minnesota Wild fan, but they're not sure.
But, like, they wanted to know more about the lore behind the Minnesota Wild, which kind of led me to perhaps I should make, like, definitive lore posts.
lists, articles to talk about the lower side with the vibes.
You know, for instance, we've got the wild have Middleton who hates shirts.
He loves to giggle.
We've got Kevin Gorg who does amazing interviews and everybody has fallen in love with him.
We've got walls with his, that man right over there.
He's got Anthony and,
He's got, we've got, uh, you know, we've got flower.
We've got Gus who, who tells riddles and, and, you know, jokes and is just the most out there person.
I love it.
And I would love to like, be able to be like, you know what, do you need a little intro to the Minnesota wild vibes?
Then go read this.
Anyway, ramble, ramble.
Now, like I said, the winter classic is happening right now.
And my favorite part is
the walk in outfits and I called them costumes because, like, honestly, it is to the point where they're just costumes now.
But this year we had the Seattle Kraken dressed as like commercial fishermen and carrying stuffed fish.
I assume they were stuffed fish.
And I liked that.
But I got to say that the Vegas Knights, as much as I don't want them to win anything, the Knights definitely won because they were all dressed as Elvis.
Although I did notice that at least one of them was not wearing an Elvis wig.
And I didn't know if that was like an intentional choice on his part or if he simply forgot the wig somewhere.
You know, I hope someone asks because I would like to know.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
But it also kind of gave me a flashback to when the Wild hosted the Winter Classic.
And again, this is another one of those games that I will never stop talking about.
Because the best thing about it.
Now, the wild lost.
It was a bummer.
Yeah.
But the atmosphere was incredible.
It was so cold.
And it felt like just the most Minnesotan thing ever.
You know, bundling up.
My parents literally went to the gas station that morning.
and bought all of the hand and foot warmers that they could, boxes of hand warmers and foot warmers.
And you know what?
I had two or three pairs in my boots.
I had them in my mittens.
We had them in our hats.
They were everywhere.
And we were all layered up.
My dad is a construction worker and works outside year round, so he knows how to dress for cold weather.
And he stuffed a duffel bag full of layers
Long underwear, jackets, socks, like everything.
And we bundled up all that we could.
My parents had gotten a hotel room that was only a couple blocks away from Target Field so that we were able to just walk over.
And then my favorite part was it was just so cold.
that by the time my brother would go to buy a beer, by the time he got back to the seat, it was a beer slush.
That's how cold it was.
And that's why I love it.
I think that's why I have a hard time watching other winter classics, because they're not cold.
I mean, maybe they're cold, but when I was at a winter classic, the high was negative six.
it just like, to me, it feels like that's what they should be like, but you know, um, other people probably completely disagree with that.
And I understand that, but I am a very proud Minnesotan.
And so I will wear that negative six hockey game as a badge of honor for my entire rest of my life.
And actually, now that I'm, now that I'm talking, I need to go find the picture that we took and I'll have to post that because again, incredible.
All right, well, that's kind of all I've got for this time.
The Wild play again tomorrow.
And I'm hoping that tomorrow morning we will get some other news.
Mike Russo from The Athletic had posted that apparently Gus is getting another MRI today.
Wouldn't it be lovely if he got better news?
Or perhaps Kirill would get some good news about his injury or someone.
But as it is, we've got Zane McIntyre still up.
We'll be backing up Flower.
We've got Nick Patan drew into the lineup last night or yesterday.
And he...
actually really clicked.
He really clicked and was amazing at reading the plays from the other, the other wild players that he was on the ice with.
Um, and then, uh, Jake Lucchini also drew into the lineup.
Dakota Mermis was there.
I mean, and again, all these AHL guys, they pulled their weight.
They knew exactly what they needed to do and they pulled their weight.
So we will see what they do tomorrow.
Um, anyway, you all are amazing hockey beauties.
Um,
hot girl hockey club.
We all are hot and you know what?
Hockey is amazing and I love you all and it's a new year and I can't wait to make more content and that's about it.
So, um, keep up the positive vibes, especially for the injury bug.
Um, and otherwise I will be back in your ears soon.