MINNEAPOLIS, MN – One city ranks 3rd on some lists while the other ranks 16th. Market sizes aside, they are both major league cities, each represented with franchises in the four major sports, one with two baseball franchises.
One city boasts pizza known as Deep Dish while the other is proud of their Juicy Lucy, sometimes spelled Jucy Lucy. Look that one up. Bears and Vikings describe their football teams and that is just where the sports comparisons begin for two cities who engage in intense battles. One is the city with big shoulders while the other is most closely tied to Scandinavian ethnicity, hence the football team’s nickname.
This weekend, the battleground is an outdoor hockey rink filled with more than 55,000 fans, braving the elements, and return to hockey in its most classic sense. Sunday afternoon, the Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks will have the hockey world focused squarely on them as they face-off in a late-season fight for two very important points. It doesn’t matter that the Central-division leading Blackhawks hold a 19-point lead over the 6th place Wild.
Throughout the United States, it is Hockey Weekend, a driven initiative by USA Hockey to promote the game to those who have even just a little bit of interest in trying the game out. But in Minneapolis and in particular, TCF Bank Stadium, it is a weekend of outdoor hockey.
The first major event is the Alumni game, featuring retired players from the former North Stars and Wild facing off against the Chicago Blackhawks. It is a look back, a remembrance of a nostalgic time, especially for those who still have a special place in their hearts for the North Stars, Minnesota’s first NHL franchise.
The comparisons for Saturday involve The Met Center and Chicago Stadium; the green and gold and the red and black, the unique starred “N” and the classic Indian head. The memories of goaltenders range from Maniago and Esposito to Beaupre and Bannerman; there is Casey and Belfour, Crawford and Dubnyk. Skaters include Broten, Ciccarelli and Modano to Roenick, Savard and Murray. On defense, Hartsburg and Giles to Chelios and Manson.
Many of those names will be there on Saturday, either on the ice or behind the bench. And my guess is there will be more green and gold North Stars apparel over any others on this day. They will fondly remember the massive sea of alternating gold, white and green seats in the college-like atmosphere of the intimate arena.
And so a quick re-cap of Minnesota NHL hockey history is in order.
The home city’s NHL journey began in 1967, a shorter history than their visitors, who have a legacy dating back to 1926. Perhaps that 41-year head start has helped Chicago capture six Stanley Cups, three since 2010. The Minnesota North Stars got close to winning a Cup twice (in 1981 where they were swept by the New York Islanders and in 1991, losing in six games to the Pittsburgh Penguins).
The Twin Cities enjoyed NHL hockey for 24 years before a stingy owner moved the team to Texas. Their home, The Met Center in Bloomington near the airport, stood adjacent to where the Mall of America stands today. I remember in November 1991, visiting to see a game, the view from my hotel of both during a snow storm which brought 29 inches of snow.
The Blackhawks were in town to play the North Stars and Mike Modano was just beginning his Hall of Fame career. Green’s bad influence was already being made as in the previous off-season, the club dumped their green and gold for black and very little green and gold. The classic starred “N” logo was trashed for the STARS wordmark in one of the greatest sports logo tragedies of all time.
While that world-class mall was being built within view of the North Stars home, no movement on the building of a new arena for the team ever came. It didn’t take much longer before Green took his team in search for more green in the Lone Star state in 1993. Six years later, the potential for a championship-caliber team was realized when the 1999 Dallas Stars one the franchises only Cup.
Seven years after that triumph and seventeen years after regular season NHL hockey was last played, the Wild took to the ice, in an arena which remains among the class of the NHL. It sure is funny how a new arena deal eventually came to fruition and reality, even if it is in a St. Paul zip code instead of one in Minneapolis. Packed houses, sellouts over many consecutive years and some measureable success early-on has kept the team far behind relevant in the region. In their fifteenth year, the Wild provide one of the best experiences in the entire league, even if their recent record has shows they have fallen on hard times in the standings.
That the Minnesota Alumni team will wear white North Stars jerseys which are close to what the team wore in the 1980s, there is just a subtle reference to the Wild, in the form of a shoulder patch. It is the starred “N” which will pull at the heartstrings of Minnesotans this weekend. With the appearance of a star-studded line-up of North Stars players filling the Minnesota alumni roster, green and gold will bring fond memories of what used to be.
The Alumni game between Minnesota North Stars/Wild and the Chicago Blackhawks takes place on Saturday, February 20th at 5:00 PM ET while the regular season game between the Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks is set for a 3:30 ET face-off.
Follow me on Twitter at DMMORRELL and you can contact me at dennis.morrell@prohockeynews.com
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