The Bruins practiced in Wilmington today after a day off yesterday. Yesterday's day off can be understandable since they got back from a west coast road trip on Sunday and had to play a matinee game on Monday. That is not fair of the NHL schedule makers. But in the game I watched last night between the Sabres and Ducks, they did the math of the Ducks' next road trip and it has them flying over 7,000 miles total. That is a lot of frequent flier miles. So the Bruins didn't have it too bad. But why they had to fly from Anaheim up to San Jose and back down to Los Angeles will be one of those mysteries.

My good friend Nicholas has never been to Wilmington in his 20 years of being a fan. I have been going to Wilmington since high school, and that included getting early dismissals to go to practices before they were open to the public. I would go just for autographs and pictures with players.

Nicholas wanted to get his Milan Lucic jersey signed. There have been failed attempts since last season and if he couldn't go, he was going to give it to me to get signed for the next practice I get to. Personally, I think there's nothing like getting something autographed for yourself from your favorite player, so we made the trek up there to the ice box.

Marc Savard, Steve Begin, Byron Bitz and Andrew Ference didn't practice. Dennis Wideman was the first one on the ice, but then went away when Tuukka Rask and Mark "One Man" Stuart came out. Marco Sturm had his serious face on while skating laps to warm up before practice started, and he seemed to be flying, scoring goals in the first couple of drills. But Sturm left midway through leaving Matt Hunwick to fill in as the other wing-man for Patrice Bergeron and Mark Recchi. That was no problem since Adam McQuaid was back from his stay over in Providence last night.

There were some scary moments in the last drill of practice. Matt Hunwick took something (either a stick or a puck) up high near his left eye. Bergeron, being the nice guy, skated over to the bench to retrieve a towel for Hunwick. The trainer checked him out, and then Hunwick went into the locker room and returned soon after. While Hunwick was gone, Stuart blocked a shot with his ankle/foot, but shook it off. Then Miro Satan got a stick up high from Tim Thomas.

After the "they got out alive" drill, the Bruins stretched at center ice. No player went into the center circle until coach Claude Julien skated by and I can only assume told Stuart to get in there. Stuart slid over from his original spot and I wondered how the heck he doesn't have an 'A' on his jersey yet. (He was in the center the last time I went to practice too, before the west coast trip.)

Practice ended and Nicholas and I headed outside to wait. I had something I wanted to get autographed too. A month or so ago, I bought a game program that had Wideman on the cover. (There might be a story behind that but I'm not willing to share.) The one thing I wanted was him to sign it.

Inside there is a two-page poster of Lucic, and one-page posters of Savard and Stuart. Since Savard was already long gone, I thought why not get Stuart to sign too? Stuart came out with Johnny Boychuk and Lucic, so while Nicholas went to Lucic's window to get his jersey personalized, I went to Stuart's and got his autograph.

I asked Stuart how his sternum was and he said it was fine... Because Stuart feels no pain.

The Bruins didn't seem too happy after practice and fans can only hope they come out pissed off against the Blue Jackets tomorrow.

I hope they give me a nice win on my birthday.