I couldn't believe it when I first saw that the Wild equipment fire damage was estimated at $100,000.00 that is a lot of money for hockey equipment. After watching last night’s games between the Wild and the Kings there seems to be no lingering effects of the fire.
Tony DaCosta stood in the middle of the Wild's dressing room Sunday morning at the Xcel Energy Center, holding an ice skate in each hand and exchanging wisecracks with players.
In the middle of packing the team's gear for its first road trip since fire destroyed more than two-thirds of it on Dec. 18 in Ottawa, DaCosta seemed in his usual good mood; the Wild had won two straight games, and everything appeared to be back to normal.
DaCosta put the skates down and shook his head.
"We're far from back to normal," he said. "We're about 50 percent."
DaCosta believes a blowtorch ignited in the back of the Ottawa Senators' equipment truck during the short drive from the Kanata Recreation Centre, where the Wild practiced, to Scotiabank Place, where the Senators defeated the Wild 4-1 on Dec. 19.
He estimated damages at about $100,000.
No one knows for sure if a blowtorch started the fire, but DaCosta knows one thing: "First of all, there'll never be a torch again on a truck that I'm on, that's for sure."
He's not nervous, just "more aware" as the team sets off on another road trip.
DaCosta, 42, the head equipment manager for the Wild from the beginning, reached into a cabinet and pulled out one of the blowtorches players use to custom bend the blades of their sticks. He pushed the ignition button and released it, and there was only a short burst of propane. He held the button, and the torch flamed to life.
For that to happen on the truck that day, he said, was "one in a million."
Equipment personnel go by the Boy Scout motto: be prepared.
[TwinCities.com]
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