NHL: will the Minnesota Wild ever change their awful name? (Minneapolis: neighborhood, mall)

[wamer27]

I don't mind the Bear head logo, but the name is terrible. They always have drafted in middle of league every year. You can't win unless you tank for a few years and get top 3 picks (look at Chi and Pens). Then we draft a star and he stays in Russia I also read Fletcher didn't meet him in person for a few years after drafting. WTF your guy in charge didn't go meet him before or right after picking him????

I believe the root is the owner, the guy didn't do anything in Nashville, they became top tier after he left. A guy I used to know when he lived here was John Madden. He told me all about playing with Wild after NJ and Chi and won 3 cups. The team treats players as second rate. NJ and Chi do things wild would never do. It's small things, but rest of players in league know them. Another good friend who skates and is good buddies with countless NHL players is good friends with Parise. Parise hates the coach and always has, Suter too. There's been screaming matches with Suter and coach. The lockeroom is't good either, what Ryan Carter told my buddy how bad it really is and he went into detail, it's not good....

[ryanthegoldengod]

I think the name is stupid but I guess I'm the only one who likes the uniforms. Red and green are cool! Not just for Christmas anymore! The Devils used to wear red and green but then caved and went to the more conservative red and black.

But I see the OP is from Quincy---in the backyard of the team with some of the ugliest uniforms in sports: the Bruins. It's not black and "gold", it's black and yellow. They look like bumblebees! Black and gold is the New Orleans Saints, the Vegas Golden Knights, the Colorado Buffaloes.....awesome uniforms. Black and yellow is hideous. I'll never understand why the Penguins went back to it after they had switched to really sharp black and gold (or pale yellow) unis.

Oh, and any franchise with bad ownership has no chance. It really is probably the most important part of the equation I've come to realize.

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

Out of staters don’t like our hockey team name. Yawn.

I am in state and I despise the name. It irks the h*ll out of me that the North Stars were allowed to relocate. It was a great name with great history. How the 'state of hockey' lost their NHL franchise is mind boggling. The Wild will never win me over and there is no doubt that it is a stupid name.

[ryanthegoldengod]

Originally Posted by TimtheGuy

I am in state and I despise the name. It irks the h*ll out of me that the North Stars were allowed to relocate. It was a great name with great history. How the 'state of hockey' lost their NHL franchise is mind boggling. The Wild will never win me over and there is no doubt that it is a stupid name.

Count your blessings. In Hartford we lost the Whalers and will likely never get an NHL team back. At least you got another team.

[Tyryztoll]

Originally Posted by ryanthegoldengod

Count your blessings. In Hartford we lost the Whalers and will likely never get an NHL team back. At least you got another team.

I'd gladly send them to Hartford right now and hope for another expansion franchise. Rather have no team than one that continually disgraces this state's incomparable hockey tradition.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by TimtheGuy

I am in state and I despise the name. It irks the h*ll out of me that the North Stars were allowed to relocate. It was a great name with great history. How the 'state of hockey' lost their NHL franchise is mind boggling. The Wild will never win me over and there is no doubt that it is a stupid name.

You do know that Norm Green relocated to Dallas because his hopes of doing retail development around the Met were dashed after he was accused of sexually harassing his assistant. Her dad happened to be Walt Dziedzik, then head of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission which had to approve his plans.

Norm took a bath moving into Reunion with the Mavericks as they knew they had him over a barrel and kept all the parking and concessions revenue from the hockey games. He sold the team a few years later and someone else built the Mall of America.

We didn’t do anything to lose the North Stars. They were regularly selling out before Norm moved the team.

[ryanthegoldengod]

Originally Posted by Tyryztoll

I'd gladly send them to Hartford right now and hope for another expansion franchise. Rather have no team than one that continually disgraces this state's incomparable hockey tradition.

Believe me, you don't want that. If you lose two NHL franchises there's a good chance you won't get a 3rd. Again, a bad NHL team is better than no NHL team. Hartford went from the Whalers to the Hartford Wolf Pack: the Rangers AHL affiliate. They often play to 2,000---3,000 or fewer crowds with the upper level of the XL Center curtained off. A sad fall from grace. And now the Whalers are mythologized in this state. Everyone dreams of them coming back. Our AA minor league baseball team and our new USL Championship soccer team both wear blue and green in honor of the now legendary Whalers. The Governor and the Mayor even sent a pleading letter to the NY Islanders' owner a couple of years ago suggesting they play in Hartford for a year whiler their arena was being renovated. (The Islanders' owner dismissed this out of hand and probably laughed at them in private). Discussions of a new arena (which never get off the ground due to costss) always center around maybe, possibly, cross our fingers the Whalers will come back.

But it's never happening. For one thing, metropolitan Hartford is just over 1 million people. For another Boston and New York fanbases intrude on our fanbase. In fact. the Whalers struggled when a local competitor for winter sport attention surfaced starting in 1990 when UConn basketball became a national power.

Obviously, MSP has big advantages over us in that way: your metro are is more than 3x bigger and you don't have two larger metros a 2 hour drive away in each direction. But still.....losing another team would be bad. And as long as you're in the big leagues there's always a chance. Look at the St. Louis Blues: the model of underachieving, mediocrity, and ownership dysfunction for decades. Yet they caught lightning in a bottle and won the Stanley Cup.

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

You do know that Norm Green relocated to Dallas because his hopes of doing retail development around the Met were dashed after he was accused of sexually harassing his assistant. Her dad happened to be Walt Dziedzik, then head of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission which had to approve his plans.

Norm took a bath moving into Reunion with the Mavericks as they knew they had him over a barrel and kept all the parking and concessions revenue from the hockey games. He sold the team a few years later and someone else built the Mall of America.

We didn’t do anything to lose the North Stars. They were regularly selling out before Norm moved the team.

I was referring to the NHL. There is no way they should have allowed the franchise to pack up and move out of MN. If you substituted say Jerry Jones for Norm Green for the scenario you laid out above, do you think the NFL and their owners would allow the Cowboys to move to a different state?

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by TimtheGuy

I was referring to the NHL. There is no way they should have allowed the franchise to pack up and move out of MN. If you substituted say Jerry Jones for Norm Green for the scenario you laid out above, do you think the NFL and their owners would allow the Cowboys to move to a different state?

The NFL and every other sport has moved plenty of teams around for shaky reasons. The NFL moved the Cardinals and Rams, the NBA let the Lakers move to LA, MLB moved the Giants and the Dodgers, the NBA moved the Jazz to Utah. It happens all the time.

Here a story from the time.

Sports | North Star Owner Sued For Harassment | Seattle Times Newspaper

[ryanthegoldengod]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

The NFL and every other sport has moved plenty of teams around for shaky reasons. The NFL moved the Cardinals and Rams, the NBA let the Lakers move to LA, MLB moved the Giants and the Dodgers, the NBA moved the Jazz to Utah. It happens all the time.

Here a story from the time.

Sports | North Star Owner Sued For Harassment | Seattle Times NewsThe paper

The sports business often seems like just a branch of the real estate business. So often teams move because they are unhappy with their facility and if they can't get the big shiny new facility they want, they move. The Chargers move back to LA was one recent example. It's almost like they're chasing the building more than the city.

Speaking of which, why did they need to build the XCel Energy Center for the Wild? What was wrong with using the Target Center? MSP has 4 major league sports teams who play in 4 different facilities! And they are all within, what?, 15 miles of each other or less?

Are they the only city that can say that? No wait.......NY also because MSG hosts the Rangers and the Knicks and the Barclays Center hosts the Islanders and Nets. But even NY has some shared use with the Giants and Jets both playing at MetLife Stadium.