Eight Crazy Days…
By Editorial Staff
A long standing joke among Wild fans revolves around being a Jewish kid on Christmas around important hockey dates. These mostly include Trade Deadline Day, Draft Day and Free Agent Frenzy. Past history with the Wild organization brings us acquisitions such as Chris Simon, Greg Zanon, and other role players. The worst gift we’ve been given was the Kim Johnsson + Nick Leddy for Cam Barker trade. Luckily, we were able to take that gift to a pawn shop.
This summer, it’s been very accurate to say that Wild fans are more like a Jewish kid on Christmas.
It’s been Eight Crazy Days…
The fact of the matter is that a Jewish kid around Christmas isn’t bereft of gifts. Their holiday is basically 8 days of gift giving. Small gifts over the course of 8 days are often overlooked because of the plethora of gifts given on the one day of Christmas. So on one hand; you have a religious holiday which gorges itself for one single day versus a religious holiday which spaces that out over 8 days.
The Florida Panthers are the Christian kids this Free Agent Frenzy while the Minnesota Wild are the Jewish kids. We’ve had “eight crazy days”, give or take.
Florida signed Tomas Fleischmann, Jose Theodore, Scottie Upshall, Ed Jovonoski, and Marcel Goc on July 1st. They joined Kris Versteeg as new Panthers. That is a large number of signings on a single day, however due to the need to reach the salary cap floor, it was not unexpected.
The Wild signed… Wait for it… Josh Harding.
Yet, the Wild were very busy around, but not on “Christmas in July” for hockey fans.
June 24th, Chuck Fletcher trades Brent Burns for Devin Setoguchi, Charlie Coyle, and the 28th over all.
June 25th, they bundle a couple of picks together and draft Mario Lucia.
June 27th, the Wild trade a future draft pick for Darrol Powe.
June 30th, Cam Barker is put on unconditional waivers and bought out.
July 1st, the Wild re-sign Josh Harding.
July 3rd, in yet another blockbuster trade, Martin Havlat is traded to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Dany Heatley.
Okay, okay, if you count the days, it has really been ten crazy days, but you get the analogy at this point, right?
All things considered, would you rather be a Florida Panther fan right now or a Minnesota Wild fan?