Oops!

10/07/2005

October 7, 2005

Should Gov. Tim Pawlenty be watching his “p’s” and “f’s”?

Before Minnesota’s biggest hockey crowd ever, the normally strait-laced governor accidentally blurted out an X-rated word that rhymes with “puck” in pregame ceremonies Wednesday for the Wild’s season opener.

On Thursday, a sheepish Pawlenty apologized for what he described as “a genuine slip of the tongue” that was blasted over the Xcel Energy Center public address system and replayed—with strategic bleeps—on many Twin Cities radio and TV stations. The slip occurred as the governor was saying, “The time has come to drop the puck.”

“I realized that as I was starting to say ‘puck,’ other sounds were coming out of my mouth,” he said Thursday. “I changed it to ‘puck,’ and if you don’t bleep out the middle part and listen to the whole thing, I think that’s clear.”

The gaffe provided so much talk radio fodder that Pawlenty called KQRS-FM to explain himself on the air, said spokesman Brian McClung.

The gist of the governor’s defense: “It just came out wrong.”