Gaborik Trade Rumors Frustrate Wild PR Staff

From John Shipley

Wild practice at Parade Ice Garden is generally a serene affair. It’s usually the two beat writers and maybe Kevin Fallness, with some hockey moms and their kids in the stands. The kids generally get an autograph or, if their lucky, a stick, and the players get relative peace and quiet.

    Tuesday’s practice, however, was exactly the kind of gong show the Wild were hoping to avoid by getting the Gaborik deal done.

    The television stations that generally show up on opening night and for the playoffs -- no longer able to ignore the issue -- descended en masse. The circus put the Wild’s PR staff into a sort of lockdown. The team was taken off the ice all at once, which I’ve never seen, and taken into the locker room for what I presume was a short meeting.

    Gaborik was dragged out for the cameras, and Risebrough did a couple of stand-ups, as well, neither saying much of anything. It was clear, however, that no one was happy with the circus.

From the R.S.S. Feed

A full media scrum today – both papers as well as three TV stations, and Kevin Falness and Tom Reid. Marney Gellner of Fox Sports North was also on hand to shoot a story with Benoit Pouliot, and Travis Brillowski and Robert Desimone of Wild.com did an Erik Reitz story in one of the side locker rooms. General manager Doug Risebrough and assistant GM Tom Lynn were also at the rink, so there were plenty of interviews to go around.

From Russo's Rants

Tense-filled morning down at Parade as the media horde came out to ask a very agitated Doug Risebrough and Marian Gaborik, “What’s the latest?” regarding stalled negotiations and all the trade rumors.

Gaborik said he doesn’t know what’s the truth, and that the media is making up trade rumors.

Risebrough wouldn’t comment on much, saying he didn’t want to perpetuate all the speculation.

He also wouldn’t talk about Gaborik’s “lower body injury,” although he said on Sid Hartman’s WCCO show Sunday what I reported last week in the paper and the blog: Gaborik wasn’t injured in Atlanta. He was actually injured playing the soccer hackysack tennis game last Wednesday morning in South Florida.

Risebrough told Sid and WCCO, “they play this game to warm up, which is a soccer game … and I think it tightened up his legs.”

An angry Risebrough wouldn’t comment about that comment today to the two beat writers because of the team’s new injury policy. Of course, that didn’t stop Risebrough from talking about Gaborik’s injury on radio. He said he’d “pick and choose” whom he comments to about anything.

How long until the team speeds up the Gaborik talks just to get him out? I can't imagine Lemaire likes having this kind of coverage around.