Made my way out to the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon this morning after hearing that some players were beginning to take advantage of the open morning ice for some pre-camp workouts. Present this morning were goaltenders Olie Kolzig and Mike Smith along with Paul Ranger, Chris Gratton, Mark Recchi and Vinny Lecavalier along with former Lightning players Brad Richards and Nolan Pratt.

As far as Lecavalier is concerned, he has returned to the Tampa area a bit earlier that normally so that he can work directly with the Lightning training staff as he continues to regain the strength in his shoulder. But the training staff almost had to take a look at Lecavalier for a completely different reason.

Tampa Bay’s future captain and longest-tenured player, who mind you has been skating almost since birth back in 1980, came through the locker room door this morning with a peach in his hand. As he stepped over the barrier to the ice, he tried to take a stride and ended up falling face-first onto the ice surface. Seems that Lecavalier, who has probably been on skates as often has he has been on his feet in his life, forgot to take off the skate blade guard before heading out of the locker room. Needless to say, the guard didn’t really move smoothly across the ice surface, resulting in him falling to the ice.

I’m happy to report that Lecavalier suffered no damage and didn’t land on his damaged shoulder. I’m also happy to report that the peach survived the fall as well, and Lecavalier was able to finish off his morning breakfast before doing some conditioning laps and playing some shinny hockey with the assembled players.

On his way off the ice, Lecavalier had a good laugh about the incident and was even hoping that Tribune photographer Jason Behnken, who was out there to take pictures for a story on Lecavalier’s rehab that will appear on Monday, was able to catch the moment on film (or memory card nowadays). Fortunately for Lecavalier, Jason didn’t have his camera focused in on Lecavalier as he was coming onto the ice.

Spoke briefly to Richards, who admitted it was a bit weird skating with some of his former Lightning teammates (he didn’t say it, but he had to feel weird skating with Smith in particular). He’s excited about starting training camp with Dallas next month and said that he never really felt like he was a part of the Stars because of the timing in which he joined Dallas. That’s a feeling that will not happen as he starts the season with the Stars. And, think of this, Richards can fly under the radar since Dallas signed No. 1 pest Sean Avery to a four-year contract. And there will be some fireworks for sure as Dallas captain Bredan Morrow came out and basically said he was not happy with the Avery signing, he doesn’t really like Avery and indicated that Avery will be a disruption to what has become a pretty tight locker room.