NHL: will the Minnesota Wild ever change their awful name? (Lake City: home, move)

[beenhereandthere]

I don't think the Name is bad, but the logo does look like a chewed off slice of pizza.

Either way, both the name and the logo are a lot worse than the North Stars name and logo.

[Stoke]

I just never liked your logo. The name could be a lot worse.

I'd like them to change it back to North Stars. Anything else would just be drama.

[2x3x29x41]

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.

No, they weren't.

Minnesota North Stars attendence over the team's last dozen seasons here:
1981-82: 15,220 (7th in the league)
1982-83: 14,485 (9th)
1983-84: 14,355 (11th)
1984-85: 13,480 (13th)
1985-86: 13,215 (14th)
1986-87: 13,512 (15th)
1987-88: 11,440 (20th)
1988-89: 9,795 (19th-21st*)
1989-90: 11,354 (21st)
1990-91: 7,838 (21st)
1991-92: 13,447 (17th)
1993-93: 13,900 (17th)
[*Probably 21st, but data is unavailable from two franchises (Chicago, New Jersey) that massively out-drew the Stars in both the preceding and following season]
NHL attendance history at hockeydb.com

The only season the franchise ever filled Met Center to capacity was during the 1981-82 campaign, which followed the Stars first run all the way to the finals. They then tacked on another three winning seasons out of four, and won at least one playoff series following three of those seasons, but attendance quickly fell to the middle of the league's pack. After a pair of seasons missing the playoffs (albeit not by much: on a tiebreaker in 1986, by 1 point in 1987) the bottom fell out. They had another two losing seasons, although the records improved, but they were still mired at the bottom of the league for attendance. Met Center stood half empty. Only when the pump was primed by another Cup run in 1991 did attendance climb a bit, but by that point the NHL had become much more popular, and merely matching the numbers that were tepid nearly a decade earlier was an even worse performance measured against climbing league-wide attendance.

Also, bear in mind that Minnesota had long had problems supporting its professional hockey teams. In 1978, the North Stars had for three seasons been able to outdraw only two other franchises (the California Seals - who relocated to Cleveland; the Kansas City Scouts - who relocated to Colorado, and later to New Jersey). Finally, in 1978 both the North Stars and the Cleveland Barons were on the verge of financial collapse, and to save the embarrassment of having not one but two franchises fold, the NHL allowed the teams to merge. The Gund brothers (owners of the Barons) had more financial resources, and became the majority owners of the team, which continued in Minnesota because the Twin Cities was considered the better market than Cleveland.

Regardless of Norm Green's personal foibles, the team was not well-supported by area fans. Stadium issues were obviously a major factor. Green position was simple: spend hundreds of millions of dollars building me a stadium - funds that won't even begin to be returned by money that wouldn't already be spent on other local businesses - or I'll find another city that's dumb enough to do so. The state refused; Green found a dumb city.

Of course, the locals later reversed course, thereby getting the worse of both worlds: losing the long-established team and forking out the money in the end.

Oh: and 'Wild' must be the dumbest name** in the big four leagues. 'Voyageurs' would have been excellent, very regional. But 'Freeze' - another original finalist' would have been as bad.

**Well, 'Magic' is pretty bad. And 'Jazz' is definitely worse.

[Ghengis]

should have named them the Saint Paul Saints

Minneapolis really isn't known as a hockey hot bed, would have made no sense trying to share an arena and play second fiddle to the Timber Dogs

Green took all the naming rights with him which included any derivative of North Stars or the green and white colors

Bill Goldsworthy lived in our neighborhood and I use to deliver him his morning newspaper

"Norm Sucks"

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by 2x3x29x41

No, they weren't.

Minnesota North Stars attendence over the team's last dozen seasons here:
1981-82: 15,220 (7th in the league)
1982-83: 14,485 (9th)
1983-84: 14,355 (11th)
1984-85: 13,480 (13th)
1985-86: 13,215 (14th)
1986-87: 13,512 (15th)
1987-88: 11,440 (20th)
1988-89: 9,795 (19th-21st*)
1989-90: 11,354 (21st)
1990-91: 7,838 (21st)
1991-92: 13,447 (17th)
1993-93: 13,900 (17th)
[*Probably 21st, but data is unavailable from two franchises (Chicago, New Jersey) that massively out-drew the Stars in both the preceding and following season]
NHL attendance history at hockeydb.com

The only season the franchise ever filled Met Center to capacity was during the 1981-82 campaign, which followed the Stars first run all the way to the finals. They then tacked on another three winning seasons out of four, and won at least one playoff series following three of those seasons, but attendance quickly fell to the middle of the league's pack. After a pair of seasons missing the playoffs (albeit not by much: on a tiebreaker in 1986, by 1 point in 1987) the bottom fell out. They had another two losing seasons, although the records improved, but they were still mired at the bottom of the league for attendance. Met Center stood half empty. Only when the pump was primed by another Cup run in 1991 did attendance climb a bit, but by that point the NHL had become much more popular, and merely matching the numbers that were tepid nearly a decade earlier was an even worse performance measured against climbing league-wide attendance.

Also, bear in mind that Minnesota had long had problems supporting its professional hockey teams. In 1978, the North Stars had for three seasons been able to outdraw only two other franchises (the California Seals - who relocated to Cleveland; the Kansas City Scouts - who relocated to Colorado, and later to New Jersey). Finally, in 1978 both the North Stars and the Cleveland Barons were on the verge of financial collapse, and to save the embarrassment of having not one but two franchises fold, the NHL allowed the teams to merge. The Gund brothers (owners of the Barons) had more financial resources, and became the majority owners of the team, which continued in Minnesota because the Twin Cities was considered the better market than Cleveland.

Regardless of Norm Green's personal foibles, the team was not well-supported by area fans. Stadium issues were obviously a major factor. Green position was simple: spend hundreds of millions of dollars building me a stadium - funds that won't even begin to be returned by money that wouldn't already be spent on other local businesses - or I'll find another city that's dumb enough to do so. The state refused; Green found a dumb city.

Of course, the locals later reversed course, thereby getting the worse of both worlds: losing the long-established team and forking out the money in the end.

Oh: and 'Wild' must be the dumbest name** in the big four leagues. 'Voyageurs' would have been excellent, very regional. But 'Freeze' - another original finalist' would have been as bad.

**Well, 'Magic' is pretty bad. And 'Jazz' is definitely worse.

Fair enough. They didn’t sell every seat to every game, but attendance wasn’t the reason they left and Green wasn’t looking for a new stadium. He wanted an upgrade and to develop the land around the Met.

The fans clearly supported the team. Some people still haven’t gotten over it.

So you’re right on that detail but your overall point is off base.

[Ghengis]

best recap of the situation here...

https://thesportsdaily.com/2019/03/1...th-stars-left/

[Tyryztoll]

Does Dallas really have the rights to the green, gold and white colors? The North Stars name I can understand, but how can a team have the rights to a color scheme?

I posted this somewhere before, but check out what the North Stars color scheme would look like on the current design. It's awesome and I'd probably settle for that at this point.

[TimtheGuy]

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 Newspaper

It does not happen "all the time" and any major league should take it very seriously. It should be a last resort type of thing.

Back when the Vikes were trying to get a stadium there was always chatter about the team being moved. If that would have happened, I would have never watched another NFL game again. It is REALLY short-sited for leagues to allow a team to move if the city/state are going to get a new franchise in the future (Houston Oilers, Baltimore Colts, Minnesota North Stars). Why would you alienate all those fans by 'giving' their team away only to replace them with some hack expansion team 10 years down the road? #sad #sick

[Tyryztoll]

Originally Posted by Ghengis

should have named them the Saint Paul Saints

That would be awesome, but two local teams with the same name? I guess it would work.....St. Louis did that with the baseball and football Cardinals before the football team moved to Arizona.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by Ghengis

best recap of the situation here...

https://thesportsdaily.com/2019/03/1...th-stars-left/

It’s a good write up. Thanks for sharing it.