A History of Professional Hockey in Minnesota: From the North Stars to the Wild

by George Rekela

Of the four major sports leagues, the National Hockey League was the most conservative, clinging to only six cities until 1967, when it improbably doubled its size. The resulting upheaval gave birth to the Minnesota North Stars and the construction of the Metropolitan Sports Center. Though the well-loved Stars made the playoffs seventeen times, including two Stanley Cup Finals appearances, they never achieved ultimate success. Their loyal fan base watched in anguish as the franchise merged with another, divided in two and relocated to Dallas. In 1997, the Twin Cities' sports market was awarded an expansion franchise. Named the Minnesota Wild, the team sold out 409 consecutive games, setting the highest sell-out streak for an expansion franchise, and returned the game back to the State of Hockey.

Genres: Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2014

Reviews

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I'm on a weird sort of quest to read a bunch of hockey books so that I actually maybe understand hockey a little bit, this was maybe not the best first one to read--it doesn't really explain hockey to me (I know what I've gathered from watching games, plus the movies Youngblood and Goon ), mostly it just talks about how Minnesota got screwed over a bunch of times, and also recommends a hockey movie that is unfortunately not on Amazon Prime or Netflix, so I'll have to wait until I get some sort of Amazon gift card and buy the DVD or something. But it was interesting. Poor timing on my part on reading it.

[Peter Simons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize what a shitshow the NHL has been with franchises and how jacked up the North Stars were. The NHL has had some real oddball owners and the poor North Stars had a couple of real jerks. I am very glad to see we have a solid franchise and fan base here and probably the most beautiful arena in the world. I am pretty sure NHL hockey will never leave Minnesota again. Good (and some bad) memories and an easy read.