Pellerin

Throughout Minnesota's inaugural training camp, Scott Pellerin will check in with the goings on with the Wild. Scott, a seven-year NHL veteran who might be the team's first captain, checks in with Day 5 -- lots of conditioning and some words from coach Jacques Lemaire.

If you want to ask Scott a question or send him a comment, click here. When Scott finds some time between skating, naps and his family he'll try to respond to or answer a few of the best ones.

I woke up with a nice black eye this morning (Monday), and the people at the hotel were giving me some funny looks looks at breakfast. I was asked twice today if I was hockey player. Gee, what gave it away? With a crooked nose and black eye, its a good thing I'm already married!

We had a controlled scrimmage with the coaches this morning. We played two 40 minute halves and our coach, Jacques Lemaire, blew a whistle when he wanted us to change lines. He made us play long shifts, one-to-two minutes at a time. It was tough to keep a high tempo.

	Pellerin, right, knows that all the hard work and conditioning will pay off once the season starts.

We lost this afternoon. The line of Jim Dowd, Sergei Krivokrasov and Cam Stewart really played well. I got tired of chasing them around. We had a breakaway shootout after the game. The winner of the shootout didn't have to skate after the game. Thankfully, we won it because we didn't have much left in our tanks. It was a hard conditioning day. I remember doing that drill when Lemaire was coach in New Jersey.

Lemaire came in the locker room between halves and asked us how we felt and why we thought they were making us play like that. He talked about how he wants the players to be able to make good decisions with the puck and minimize turnovers.

We got our physical testing results back today. They had some problems with the VO2 bikes so the results were a little off. Basically they showed that everyone came to camp in really good shape.

After practice, we found out that we will be breaking up into two groups tomorrow. My group consists of 36 players. That is going to be a lot of guys on the ice for a practice. Its going to be different having the coaches on the ice with us.

Side note to whom it may concern: Driving around the area we've noticed that practically everyone has a boat in their yard. It made me think of my buddy Joe at the marina back in New Hampshire who was on me all summer to upgrade from my old blue boat.