It's Hockey Day in Minnesota today with the festivities being hosted in Bemidji. The jam packed day of outdoor hockey and events. There are two high school boys contests being played as Andover and Minnetonka kick the day off and later in the afternoon Greenway will faceoff against host Bemidji.

Hockey Day also features two women's college games as Minnesota State faces Bemidji and then Ohio State goes up against UMD.

Hockey Day needs to wrap up with Wild victory:

Victor Rask is set to make his Wild debut and Louie Belpedio has been recalled. Combined with the addition of Pontus Aberg, Bruce Boudreau finally has some fresh faces to work with as he maneuvers his team into position for a second half playoff run.

It is time for the rest of the Wild players to change their attitude to reflect the fact that there is a new regime in place and nothing is guaranteed moving forward.

The days of coming to the rink and expecting to play just for showing up. The fact that the player sitting next to them today may be somewhere else tomorrow needs to resonate through the team.

A renewed locker room with a sense of urgency must be the theme and the message has to be one of unrest.

Every player has to be on notice regardless of contract status, ice time must be earned mov uk NY forward.

Bruce Boudreau must change his own actions with how he makes personnel decisions from the top of the roster to the bottom. Special teams playing time must be earned based on how effective the players are.

Boudreau cannot reward players for what they have done over their careers or even how professional they are in their approach to practice. It has to be based on game day performance and some of the leaders on this Wild team have experienced significant decline in their games thru the first half of the season.

Tonight as Hockey Day Minnesota wraps up with the Wild hosting the Blue Jackets, Boudreau's team has to come out with an "all business" approach. The message has to be clear that that everyone is on notice and accepting anything less that a total team effort, with everyone pulling in the same direction.

Anything less than that moving forward is unacceptable, period, end of story.

Today is officially Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!

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