Hockey's Back In Minnesota

The addition of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter has brought excitement back to Minnesota.

 When you think of Minnesota a few things come to mind, cold, sub-zero temperatures that make the state the most uninhabitable in the continental-48, those hilariously funny accents, 10,000 lakes and hockey.

Minnesota is Canada South in terms of hockey production. If it wasn't for Minnesota, the United States hockey team wouldn't be anywhere near it's standing today. The state produces hockey players like Anheuser-Busch makes cold ones. It is also the only place where the state hockey tournament retains more importance than the NHL squad does.

That's where the Wild come in, pretty weakly I must add. The franchise came here in 2001 after the original Minnesota NHL squad, the North Stars, headed south in 1994, leaving behind a sour taste in the mouths of Minnesotans everywhere. The state's pro team had been there for 25 years and never won a Stanley Cup, yet it only took the Dallas Stars six years before they won their first. It's almost exactly like the situation between Seattle and Oklahoma City, but far worse. The North Stars were like a microcosm of the state and when they left it was like Minnesota's heart was ripped out of its body and thrown into the Great Lakes like a longnose sucker. 

When the NHL expanded the league and brought back a team to Minnesota, people were excited, but still a bit turned off. The newly built Xcel was a major selling point to get fans back interested in the NHL. But it really transformed into a high school hockey mecca. The Wild jerseys were relatively hideous, and the first two years started similarly to how most expansions teams first two years go, horribly. But in 2002-03, the Wild finally tasted their first bite of success. Led by young gun Marian Gaborik, a stay-at-home blue line corp rivaling the toughest ever and a unbeatable Dwyane Roloson, Minnesota found itself in an epic Western Conference semi-final vs. the Canucks which went seven and ended in as dramatic a fashion as a series can end. But, the Wild soon found their match as they fell victim to the broom at the hands of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in the Western Conference Finals. They would again make the playoffs in '06-'07 and '07-'08, but the Wild's 409 straight sellouts were more likely out of pure love for the game, more than actual love for the team. The doldrums of the Western Conference cellar proved to be too much for fans to take as the sellout streak was snapped in '10 with the Wild plummeting.

After coming off back-to-back disappointing seasons under Todd Richards the Wild hired Mike Yeo last season, a coach of only 39 years, to lead them back to playoff consistency. Yeo actually got them off to a flying start as they sat 20-7-3 on December 10th and were amidst a seven game winning streak that catapulted them to the top of the Western Conference standings. The whole league was caught by surprise, this young, unprepared team was doing major damage in a vicious Western Conference. Minnesota was fired up about its squad and things in the hockey capital were appearing to reach normalcy again. But the team, as expected, faded back into the basement and once again the Wild were sitting in the bottom half of their conference at the end of the season.

Free agency began with some rumblings that the Wild were going to be big players in this offseason, particularly on superstar blue liner Ryan Suter and USA team captain Zach Parise. But really, the Wild were going to make the big free agent splash? Not a chance, especially when they're competing against the big markets like Detroit and the Rangers. There was just no way the Minnesota Wild would be attractive enough, even with the state's rabid obsession with hockey. The franchise was a joke. It just couldn't happen. And then it did, in bigger fashion then any of us could imagine.

Spurring the big lights of New York and storied franchise of Detroit, both Suter and Parise inked long term deals with the Wild. Both of them. It was going to be a surprise if one of them signed. But the Wild somehow pulled a Miami Heat-esque move and brought both stars in, yet in a fashion nowhere as slimy as Pat Riley's. As much as this comes as surprise to everyone, it's actually becomes the perfect scenario.

Parise's a hometown-Minnesota kid, Suter's close by being a Wisco-native, it all works so seamlessly. Minnesota was robbed of its hockey back in '94, but it has finally got its revenge. These signings obviously have catapulted the Wild back in the realm of relevancy and even, though it remains a work in progress, a Stanley Cup contender. In the very least it should reignite an obsessive fan base that for a minute wasn't so pleased with its pro team. The Xcel Center should surely sellout, Wild jerseys should once again triumph under 20 layers of coats and Minnesota should feel good about itself for a long while.

The North Stars never should have left, we get that. But the best thing that could have happened to the state of Minnesota just happened.