North Stars greats come home for alumni game

Neal Broten was a legend in Minnesota before he pulled on a North Stars sweater. He led Roseau High School to three state tournament appearances in a row. He led the University of Minnesota to a National Championship in 1979, scoring the game-winning goal and winning the WCHA Rookie of the Year award. He won the first Hobey Baker Award in 1981.

And there’s that whole “Miracle On Ice” thing that he was a part of.

For 13 years, he pulled on the green-and-gold Minnesota North Stars sweater. And before he knew it, he was moving to Dallas.

“When we first heard we kind of laughed about it ‘Minnesota’s going to move to Dallas? Yeah right,’” Broten said from his Western Wisconsin farm earlier this week, “Once it became official and the moving van came to the house and we’re heading down [Interstate] 35, that’s when reality set in. Speaking for myself, I was kind of in shock. It was hard to believe that a team would leave Minnesota.”

This weekend, a good number of former North Stars will be back in town as part of a joint alumni team with the Minnesota Wild to take on the Chicago Blackhawks alumni on Saturday afternoon at TCF Bank Stadium. Broten and Mike Modano are the only two players who are scheduled to play in the alumni game that were with the North Stars in their final season in Bloomington.

“The fans figured and we figured that we would have solidified our future in Minnesota,” said Modano. The North Stars had reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1991, losing to Pittsburgh 4 games to 2. “After that year, we thought there was no chance [we’d leave]. There was too much momentum and the owners would make it work.

“I thought right up until the last minute we’d stay.”

The Road Out Of Town

The momentum to pull the North Stars out of Minnesota had been brewing for several years. The North Stars came into the league in 1967, part of the six-team expansion that doubled the size of the league. George and Gordon Gund became majority owners of the team in 1978 after the team merged with the Cleveland Barons, which the Gunds owned.

By 1990, the Gunds had tried — unsuccessfully — to move the team to San Jose. The league, as a compromise, gave the Gunds an expansion team in the Bay Area — the San Jose Sharks — and the Gunds sold the North Stars to the group that had been trying to put a team in San Jose.

Norm Green had purchased a controlling interest of the team and three years later, moved the team to Dallas.

Modano, said that the a solution to keeping the North Stars in Minnesota was to give Green an expansion team in Dallas, much the same way the Gunds got an expansion team in San Jose.

Modano said the move stung him.

“Personally, there was a lot of disappointment and frustration that that we couldn’t make it work in Minnesota, being the type of hockey environment that the town and that state has,” he said. “We thought somehow, some way, we temporarily could make something work with the Timberwolves at Target Center. We all thought that was the obvious choice. We were frustrated. Taking hockey out of Minnesota was the furthest thing from our minds.”

It may have been the obvious choice, but it was anything but the easy one. Lou Nanne, the former North Stars player, coach and general manager who will again be behind the bench on Saturday, wrote that conflicting sponsorships kept the Wild from moving to the Target Center.

In Nanne’s book “Minnesota North Stars,” written by Bob Showers, the North Stars sponsorships by Pepsi and McDonald’s conflicted with the Timberwolves’ Coca-Cola and Burger King sponsorships.

“It was an unfortunate way to learn how pro teams operate and the business of hockey, how it can affect a town and a state,” Modano said. “We still talk about it to this day, how it would have been if we could have played the whole career in Minnesota and not leave the state. Who knows what type of team or organization we could have had. You felt a little frustrated for the fans. We felt like we let them down.

“If it could work for high school, or the Gophers, or St. Cloud State or Minnesota-Duluth. why not us? The high school scene was just as pop as the North Stars scene. Granted we never gave them too much to be excited about because of the seasons we had but after the run to the finals we thought it would solidify it.”

For his part, Broten said that the fans he has encountered know who’s to blame. And it’s not the players.

“They didn’t like Norm Green,” Broten said. “He was the main man in moving the team. Nothing negative was said about the players. We wish we could’ve stayed but when Norm Green says the team is moving, the team is moving.

“When the owner said we were moving. I might have taken it the hardest. I played my first 13 years in Minnesota. I put a lot of time, effort, blood into it. I loved the Met Center, I knew the area. But Dallas was great, too.”

Return Of The Logo

The North Stars/Wild alumni will be wearing the old North Stars logo — the N-Star — with a smaller N-Star on one shoulder and Wild logo on the other shoulder. Many malls throughout the Twin Cities still have hats and jerseys with the original North Stars logo on sale at stores. Modano said the logo was a fixture at the Xcel Energy Center for his first several years coming back with Dallas after the Wild came to be in the 2000-01 season.

Neal Broten shows off the uniforms that the North Stars/Wild alumni will wear. at TCF Bank Stadium. Photo courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn/Minnesota Wild

“It was all the same faces I remember seeing at the Met Center, all sitting in the same spot,” he said. “The North Stars were the Minnesota team, and they always will be. The North Stars were one of the classic teams that people will always remember.”

Modano and Broten have taken different approaches to preparing for the game.

Modano: “I’m excited. I’ve been skating a little bit the last two or three weeks trying to knock the rust off. I think it’s going to be great. I think we’re all looking forward to it.”

Broten: “Oh that’s right, we’ve got a game in a couple days. I forgot about that. It’ll be exciting.”

Modano said it will be the first outdoor game for a lot of them, and with no morning or pre-game skate, it could be interesting.

“We’ll just show up and let’s see what happens,” Modano said. “The warm up will be a lot of guys’ warm up. The game may be slow at the beginning, but It’ll be a lot of laughs, I’m sure. No one wants to blow a hip out at this point.”

Broten isn’t sure it’ll get too fast-paced at all.

“Some of the guys skate a bit, some don’t,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll be too fast-paced. Guys aren’t going to try and embarrass the other guys. I think Chicago’s got a couple guys that are almost 70.

“Hopefully we can still skate a bit and put on a good show.”

A Rivalry Renewed

Along with being a classic team, the North Stars are still remembered by many for their rivalry with the Blackhawks during the 1980s — two Norris Division teams had no love for each other. But would a game against Dallas have been a better tribute to pro hockey’s history in Minnesota?

“The rivalry with the Blackhawks was pretty fierce back in the day,” Broten said. “But Dallas, that would have been cool to get them to play an outdoor game back here. I’m not sure about the rivalry between Chicago and the Wild. I’m not sure it’s too intense yet. I know they’ve played in the playoffs and Chicago’s beaten them.

“It would have been interesting if Dallas would’ve come here.”

When the North Stars Left, though, nothing was the same.

Said Modano: “Once that team was gone, it ended a lot of great match-ups that we had with a lot of teams. I don’t think they’ve ever been the same.”

What: Minnesota North Stars/Wild vs. Chicago Blackhawks alumni game

Where: TCF Bank Stadium

When: Saturday, Feb. 20, 4 p.m. CST

Follow Lonny on Twitter @lonny_goldsmith and you can always reach him at Lonny.Goldsmith@prohockeynews.com