Before Quinn Hughes had even played a game in a Wild uniform, the team’s general manager was already promoting Minnesota as a place the star defenseman might want to stay long-term.

“I think Quinn will really like it here. He’s a hockey nut. He watches every game. He knows what’s going on in the league. … He just loves hockey,” Bill Guerin said. “And I think there’s obviously no better market than Minnesota to be a hockey player.”

Originally from Florida, Hughes – who will make his debut Sunday evening versus Boston – arrived in his new hockey home on a prototypical deep winter Minnesota day, with the sun shining and a minus symbol in front of the day’s high temperature. Asked about the first impression the bone-chilling weather would offer, Guerin said perhaps their first stop would be an immersion in real Minnesota hockey culture.

“He’s gonna skate on one of the lakes tonight, just to loosen up,” Guerin said, with a sarcastic grin.

Hughes, 26, can hit the free agent market in July 2027, and Guerin can offer an extension starting next summer.

The trade, which is already considered the biggest in-season move in franchise history, came together quickly over the past week.

Guerin and Vancouver hockey operations president Jim Rutherford were in discussions. Guerin made a sizable offer, proposing three former first round picks and one future one in exchange for Hughes, who was named the NHL’s top defenseman two seasons ago. On Friday, while Guerin was making Italian food from a family recipe in preparation for their coming Christmas Eve dinner, Rutherford called to say the Wild’s first offer got it done.

“So I had to take my latex gloves off. I was rolling meatballs and he told me we had a deal,” Guerin recalled. “There was fist pumping involved.”

The next calls Guerin made weren’t as much fun. Forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, and up-and-coming defenseman Zeev Buium all learned from their now-former boss they were due in New Jersey to join their new team, the Canucks. Guerin said all three “handled it like men” as he made it clear that he was not looking to shop any of them, had it not been for Hughes.

“Vancouver got three really good young, quality guys,” Guerin said. “If Quinn Hughes wasn’t available, they’d still be here, and I was totally fine with that. But like I said before, you have to give something to get something.”

In Hughes, the Wild got a game-changing player whose advanced numbers in terms of controlling play from the blue line and advancing the puck out of the defensive zone are the best in the NHL. For a team that began the day in third place in the Central Division, but within striking distance of both Colorado and Dallas, Hughes was seen as a key addition for a team with designs on winning a playoff series for the first time in a decade, and making a deep playoff run for the second time in the franchise’s 25 year existence.

After locking down players like Brock Faber, Filip Gustavsson, Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov to long-term deals, Guerin and the Wild ownership clearly feel like the core is in place. And as the team has salary cap space and many good assets still in hand, Guerin hinted that the Wild are not necessarily done talking trades. But in the near term, when Hughes makes his Wild debut on Sunday, they want him to do what he has done since entering the NHL in 2019 and not feel like he needs to be a savior.

Guerin also admitted patience is not one of his strongest traits. That made the past few years tough, with the Wild lacking the salary cap space to make any trades or free agent signings of note. They were relatively quiet in free agency in July, but Guerin reiterated then that the additional salary cap space freed up by Zach Parise and Ryan Suter coming off the books meant that in-season moves of note were more likely.

Even with the general manager’s hands full of meatball mix, when the call from Vancouver came, the timing was perfect.

“I don’t know what the right moment is, but if you wait for it, you’re gonna miss it,” Guerin said. “I don’t know if the weather had to be warmer or something, but when it’s a player of this caliber, the right time’s always now.”

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After weeks of watching products on its store shelves dwindle, customers and employees of the Oxendale’s Market grocery in West St. Paul received bitter news this past week. The store, which opened in 2014 in the strip mall off Dodd Road and Bernard Street, will close by Dec. 23, if not sooner.

The announcement was first carried by the West St. Paul Reader, which noted that Oxendale’s was the fourth grocery store to try to make a go of it in the aging and outdated Doddway Center, preceded by Jim’s Market, R.C. Dick’s and Applebaum’s. Employees, according to the Reader, will not be transferred to Oxendale’s other locations.

What triggered its coming closure?

Oxendale’s Market in West St. Paul on Dec. 11, 2025. Oxendale’s is set to close Dec. 23, 2025. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)

Managers at the West St. Paul location and two other Oxendale’s groceries in St. Paul and Minneapolis declined comment on Wednesday and referred all questions to a central office, which did not immediately return calls.

Road construction this summer realigning the intersection of Smith Avenue and Dodd Road likely played a part, but experts in the grocery industry say small-to-midsized independent grocers have been buffeted by the same headwinds affecting everyday consumers, from inflation and economic uncertainty to the recent government shutdown that temporarily froze SNAP food benefits.

On top of that, a wave of deportations has heightened a labor shortage and customer hesitancy in ethnic markets.

El Burrito Mercado trims hours, shelves

Oxendale’s isn’t the only grocery going through tough times. Two miles to the northeast, El Burrito Mercado on Cesar Chavez Street in St. Paul announced over the past week that it would limit the hours of its deli, restaurant and grocery come January while removing about 18 feet of store shelving.

“There will be fewer products on the shelves, limited item availability, shortened business hours — and the hardest part of all, reduced hours for many of our staff,” reads a statement posted to social media by Milissa Silva, co-owner and chief executive officer of the storied establishment, long a staple of the city’s West Side Latino community.

A shelf sits mostly empty while in preparation to be removed from the store floor in El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul on Dec. 11, 2025. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)

Silva, in an interview Wednesday, said she’s seeing fewer customers, and those who do come in are buying less.

“It is foot traffic,” said Silva, whose parents opened the restaurant and grocery in 1979. “It’s shopping habits. They’re buying smaller quantities. The immigrant community being very fearful … that’s obviously keeping folks away.”

“We’re trying to pivot, but it’s hard,” she added. “We’ve cut a lot of staff hours. It’s really tough. This can’t be forever. We’re trying to be optimistic that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Silva has urged state and local government to do more to help independent grocers, and she encourages elected leaders to join others in shopping local. In a post to social media, she asked customers to help by buying gift cards online to share with families in need and ethnic foods to donate to food shelves, as well as by dining and shopping at independent grocers.

“We need to start a campaign where people say ‘I pledge to shop small,’” Silva said, “and call out our political leaders to be louder on this messaging, because there’s so many restaurants and small businesses that are hurting. And yes, send a little extra love to Latino-owned businesses. Many of us are feeling these hardships even more deeply.”

Other recent grocery closures have included the Midway Cub Foods in the Snelling/University Avenue area of St. Paul and, earlier this year, the Lunds and Byerly’s market in downtown St. Paul, both of which were frequent targets of shoplifters and magnets for other unruly behavior. A Cub Foods on Lagoon Avenue in Uptown Minneapolis closed in June for renovations but reopened in August.

Food prices, economic uncertainty

Pat Garofalo, president of the Minnesota Grocers Association, said grocery stores are capital- and labor-intensive, making them sensitive to even minor economic changes.

While Oxendale’s isn’t a recent member of his association, he said it’s not hard to see why many independent grocers are struggling following periods of high inflation, workforce shortages and food prices affected by government tariffs and supply-chain issues like avian flu.

Minnesota recipients of federal SNAP food benefits lost access to those benefits for just about three days during the 43-day government shutdown that ended Nov. 12, a situation that could have been much worse but for how the state schedules distribution of its federal allotment of SNAP funding. For many grocers, the SNAP situation still affected how they ordered inventory.

“Affordability impacts small businesses just as much as it impacts consumers,” he said. “Rising property taxes, increasing labor mandates and a shrinking workforce create a lot of headwinds for independent grocery stores.”

He added: “As consumer confidence has declined, and there’s more uncertainty in the economy, this impacts people’s shopping patterns. And that applies to flat incomes, higher costs, immigration uncertainty — all of those play a role.”

New business mandates also carry costs and other challenges. A statewide paid family-leave benefit that begins Jan. 1 is already raising questions about how small businesses will schedule around 12 to 20 weeks of paid leave during a labor shortage. The leave, available to almost all workers, will be funded by new payroll taxes, with costs split between employers and employees.

Bright spots?

It’s unclear if the worst is truly behind the American consumer in terms of rising food prices, but there’s a few more bright spots in the grocery aisles these days compared with just a few months ago.

The Trump administration recently relented on international tariffs around beef, coffee and dozens of other agricultural goods. Egg prices have largely stabilized since outbreaks of avian flu in early 2025 sent them soaring. Beef prices are still high, but milk prices have come down a bit because of oversupply.

“I think that the worst is over,” Garofalo predicted. “A lot of these factors involved the supply chain, particularly with beef, where we had a drought a couple years ago. Reducing or eliminating the new tariffs that have been imposed will make things better.”

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If food prices do fall, or at least stabilize, that could spell welcome relief for independent grocers, including others at risk of closing in 2026.

“Certainly, no one benefits from food deserts, and food deserts exist in both urban areas and rural areas,” said Garofalo, who for 20 years was a Republican state representative for rural Farmington and surrounding suburbs. “It seems like something Republicans and Democrats could work together to prevent from happening. Everyone eats.”

The Catholic Charities Higher Ground Minneapolis shelter will be open until 10 a.m. Monday to give people a place to go during this weekend’s frigid weather

The shelter, located 165 Glenwood Ave in Minneapolis, normally opens from 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. each day will remain open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to allow people to be inside during the daytime hours, a spokesperson said.

The National Weather Service Twin Cities said bitter cold is swooping in this weekend.

“Wind chill values will drop to the -15 to -30 degree range tonight through Sunday night, potentially as low as -35. These dangerously cold conditions can cause frostbite in as little as 10 minutes to exposed skin,” the NWS posted on its X account.

Shelter staff will provide people with hot meals, showers, cold-weather essentials, and a refuge from the freezing temperatures.

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By VIRGINIA MAYO

ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — Getting ready for the holiday season has never been stressful for Christel Dauwe — after all, her holiday period lasts all year long in her Christmas ornament shop in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

Her collecting began in her teenage years, and she now has more than 64,000 ornaments in her personal collection and another 18,000 displayed in her shop, the Christel Dauwe Collection.

“My personal wish is to have a Christmas museum, where ornaments and the idea of Christmas can be on permanent display,” she told The Associated Press. But until that day comes, her small shop uses every corner to display its vast inventory.

Its wares include birds of every feather, fruit arrangements, cars, angels, snowmen and other figurines, ranging from a few euros for a wood laser-cut Cathedral of Antwerp to more than 500 euros ($580) for a special ornament of Alexander the Great on horseback.

The store began 35 years ago as an antiques shop, selling a few ornaments on the side, but Dauwe wanted to try selling more.

On the suggestion of a Polish au pair, Dauwe and her husband traveled to Poland and found a factory that could produce exactly the ornaments she wanted. The only catch was that 200 pieces of each design had to be ordered at a time.

They returned home deflated.

“After second thoughts though, we decided to order 20 shapes of 200 each, and one day they arrived — all 4,000 of them. We gave some away and the rest we put in the shop and, well … That’s the story from there,” she said.

The original Polish factory still supplies many of the shop’s ornaments, in addition to 32 other European companies.

“There is an ornament here for everyone. We’ve had people come in who say they have a new pet or even a new car and we try to match an ornament to them. In the end the goal is not to have some kind of posh tree decorated all with the same colors and Christmas balls. The goal of ornaments is to make you smile,″ she said.

Some ornaments are more personal. And one year there was an ornament of Christel herself, designed by her husband as a surprise.

She’s been asked to provide ornaments for weddings and other events as well.

As far as having Christmas all year round, Dauwe says she is never bored with it. Twice a year she goes around the shop and dusts each ornament individually. She has met people from all over the world, and entertains die-hard locals who stop into the store just for a morning chat.

“There are two ways to go with Christmas. It’s either the nostalgia of the past or the hope for the future,″ she said. ″Hope is what is the most important to me. It’s what keeps you going.”