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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781641253314 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 11/12/2019 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
1. Becoming the Wild
When the National Hockey League decided to return to Minnesota in 1997, the city and the franchise had three years before it would ever see the ice.
Perhaps the most important piece of business to figure out during that time was what it would do about its nickname.
It had been four years since the North Stars left for Dallas, Texas, and though that franchise had dropped the "North" and became simply the "Stars" upon its arrival in the Lone Star State, many in Minnesota wanted the new franchise to harken back to its roots and secure its legendary old "N" logo. "People wanted that. [But] Dallas owned the rights to the name 'Stars' and all their history at that point, and people didn't really understand that," said Bill Robertson, the Wild's first vice president of communications and broadcasting. "They weren't going to relinquish it, so it couldn't happen. But there was an outpour of people who wanted that."
Owner Bob Naegele thought it was possible for a new NHL team in Minnesota to try and connect with its roots, but at the same time, start with a blank slate. So he had Jac Sperling, a minority owner and the team's vice chairman, go about finding one.
The team solicited fans for ideas on what they wanted to see, asking them to write letters with suggestions for a new nickname. Sperling took the job very seriously, according to Robertson. There was rarely a letter Sperling didn't open himself.
Eventually, the organization and its marketing firm narrowed down the list to six potential team names: the Wild, the Freeze, the Northern Lights, the Blue Ox, the Voyageurs, and the White Bears.
All six names had strong ties to Minnesota's famously chilly climate, and some had intriguing branding possibilities. But in the end, "Wild" was the one chosen.
Years later, the NHL took control of team names for franchises that relocated, including the North Stars, Nordiques, and the first reincarnation of the Winnipeg Jets, who moved to Phoenix in 1995. When the Atlanta Thrashers were purchased by True North Sports and Entertainment in 2011 and moved to Winnipeg, the Jets was the overwhelming favorite among fans as the choice for the team's new nickname.
It's likely Naegele and his group would have faced similar pressure from local fans had that option been available to them in the late 1990s. "I think it would have been considered heavily," Robertson said. "But I think there is another current of thought that we wanted to be something different than that. We don't want to have to be the exact same. The Cleveland Browns became the Cleveland Browns again, kind of in the same vein. But there was a thought of, 'It would be kind of cool to have that nostalgic piece and carry it on,' and others thought it might not be, it might be good to create our own identity."
2. Building from the Back
As Wild general manager Doug Risebrough entered the expansion draft process in 2000, he had one clear objective in mind: find a way to build his new team with speed and build it from the back forward. "The player pool was not nearly as good as the one Vegas had [in 2017]," Risebrough said, "which is just the way it should be. They spent a lot of money to get an expansion team; they deserved to get the players they got."
Once it became clear the Wild would select third in the 2000 Entry Draft, guaranteeing it would have the option to pick one of goaltender Rick DiPietro or forwards Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik, Risebrough wanted the focus to be on his blue line in the expansion draft.
The Wild had already worked out a deal for goaltender Manny Fernandez, a player Risebrough was comfortable hailing as a top goaltender. Minnesota wanted to find someone to push Fernandez in the crease and players that could help keep his crease clean in front of him. "We knew we had one good goalie, and we were looking to get another good goalie," Risebrough said. "We really tried to focus on defensemen."
Because of the rules of the draft, wherein each existing franchise (minus Nashville and Atlanta) could only lose one defenseman and one goaltender in total, Minnesota and Columbus each focused on those areas early.
Minnesota had won the coin flip between the clubs and chose to pick higher in the entry draft, which meant Columbus selected first in the expansion draft. With that pick, the Blue Jackets chose goaltender Rick Tabaracci.
The Wild countered with two goaltenders of their own, Jamie McLennan and Mike Vernon, who would be traded to Calgary for forward Dan Cavanaugh and an eighth-round pick in the 2001 NHL Draft.
Columbus countered with two more goaltenders and two familiar names to Wild fans: Frederic Chabot, who would later go on to become the club's goaltending development coach, and Dwayne Roloson, who never played for the Blue Jackets and signed with the St. Louis Blues' minor league affiliate instead. Roloson would eventually sign with the Wild as a free agent the following summer and play parts of four seasons with the club.
The Wild finished up the run of goaltenders by selecting Chris Terreri, who it shipped back to New Jersey (the team from which he was plucked) along with a draft pick for defenseman Brad Bombardir.
But Bomber wasn't the first defenseman the Wild would end up with that day that made a difference.
The first non-goalie picked in the expansion draft was defenseman Sean O'Donnell, who played 63 games with Minnesota during its first season. It also picked Curtis Leschyshyn, who played in 54 contests. "[O'Donnell] was perfect for us because he was a big, strong even-tempered guy who had a physical presence," Risebrough said. "And he was proud of being the top defenseman with a lot of young guys. I remember thinking O'Donnell would be our guy, and if we could get him, that would be a good start."
Those two were the best known of its chosen blue liners at the time, but they didn't have the longest tenures with the club.
Ladislav Benysek spent parts of three years with the organization, playing in 145 games during the first two years of the Wild. With the 15 pick of the expansion draft, Minnesota selected little-known Filip Kuba from the Calgary Flames. "All unknowns. Nobody knew about Filip Kuba, nobody knew about Benysek," Risebrough said. "I often stuck to the idea of really wanting mobility, and both of those guys came on because of their mobility. Give them credit; they put in the work to become the players [they eventually became]. But the day they were drafted, not a lot of people knew them, and quite frankly, we didn't know them that well either."
Kuba, who had just 18 games of NHL experience in two prior seasons, would go on to play five seasons for Minnesota and make an NHL All-Star team in 2004. He still ranks as one of the best defensemen in team history, having scored 33 goals and 132 points in 357 games with the Wild. He finished his NHL career in 2013 having skated in 836 games in the league.
Minnesota hit on some of its forward picks later in the draft as well.
Scott Pellerin was plucked from the St. Louis Blues and scored 11 goals in his only season with the club. Jim Dowd played four seasons with the Wild after being selected 30 overall. With the 43 pick, Minnesota chose Richfield, Minnesota, native Darby Hendrickson, who would go on to play four seasons with his hometown team and score the first goal in the first home game in franchise history.
3. Riser
Most any former Montreal Canadien boasts a Stanley Cup ring or two and a lofty winning percentage as a player. Doug Risebrough is no different.
In just his second season in the NHL in 1976, Risebrough was a part of a Stanley Cup winning team with the Canadiens, one that would go on to win four consecutive Cups before the end of the decade.
After a trade to the Calgary Flames in 1982, Risebrough became a respected captain and one who brought the Flames to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1986, only to lose to his old organization, the Canadiens.
Upon retiring, Risebrough moved behind the bench in Calgary, where he won the Stanley Cup in 1989 as an assistant coach. He moved into management the following year, serving as assistant general manager for one season and head coach for a year and a half while also becoming just the second GM in Calgary's history.
Risebrough maintained his GM spot in Calgary until November of 1995, then became vice president of hockey operations down the road with the Edmonton Oilers, a role he served in until 1999.
When the Minnesota Wild called about hiring him as its first-ever GM, Risebrough was indifferent. Edmonton had made the playoffs all three seasons he was with the organization, and he wasn't necessarily looking to move on.
Glen Sather, the GM of the Oilers at the time, got a call from the Wild asking for permission to speak to Risebrough, but Sather wouldn't sign off on it until after arbitration hearings were held in August. At that point, the Wild were only one year away from hitting the ice for its first training camp; Columbus, which entered the same year as Minnesota, had hired its GM months earlier in the process.
Risebrough was fine with holding off, though. "I wasn't really thinking of leaving, I liked the job I was doing," Risebrough said. "Then sure enough, I got a call from Jac Sperling, I met with him twice, I met with Bob [Naegele] once, and things went fast. The more I was there [in Minnesota], the more I realized I was ready to leave [Edmonton] too. You don't think about leaving until there is an opportunity, and I've always been a guy to do the job that's just in front of me, not architect where I'm gonna be. But when this opportunity was there, I thought it would be a good fit."
On September 2, 1999, Risebrough was named the Wild's first general manager. It was a unique opportunity for him to start completely from scratch and build a franchise from the ground up. "What people see are the players, and everybody is getting a chance where maybe they didn't get a chance before," Risebrough said. "But the whole staff is like that, the whole operation. The energy level behind an expansion team is just phenomenal. It's everywhere, everyone is having a good day all the time."
In searching for his first head coach, his list began and ended with one name: former Montreal teammate Jacques Lemaire.
An eight-time Stanley Cup champion as a player, twice more as an assistant GM with the Canadiens, and once more as head coach of the New Jersey Devils in 1995, Lemaire brought with him a resumé boasting one main trait: "He's a winner," Risebrough said.
Building a winning tradition was Risebrough's primary objective when he set about laying the foundation of the franchise. But how does one do that when you're building from scratch?
In Risebrough's eyes, it was about bringing in as many people with that shared background as possible. "I got winners there," Risebrough said. "[Former assistant coach] Mike Ramsey is a winner. Jacques is a winner. [Former assistant coach] Mario [Tremblay] was a winner. Darby Hendrickson is a winner. [Andrew] Brunette is a winner. [Sean] O'Donnell was a winner. I always say, I stole tradition and stole winning from a lot of different places."
Risebrough found building an expansion team to be far more gratifying than he thought the experience would be, mostly because he was able to retrain his mind to find a new comfort zone. "As an experienced GM, you always fear the unknown: this player is going to leave, and there is nothing you can do about it, or this coach is gonna retire; what are you gonna do about it? It drives you crazy," Risebrough said. "The biggest thing I learned in Minnesota as an expansion general manager was: it's all unknown. If you don't embrace unknown, you're not going to have fun, and it was way better than I thought."
4. The Minnesota Jets?
Had the original Winnipeg Jets secured their first choice of relocation, the Wild may not exist today.
Following the 1994 — 95 season, things were especially bleak for the Jets. Rising operating costs and bloated player salaries made things especially tough for the NHL's Canadian franchises. It was especially tough for Winnipeg, which was the league's smallest city after the Quebec Nordiques relocated to Denver in 1995 and became the Avalanche.
The Canadian dollar was also struggling and only worth around 70 cents American. The lockout during the 1994 — 95 season made things worse, costing the Jets and every other team half its home gate revenue.
Its home at the time, Winnipeg Arena, was nearly 40 years old. And despite the fact that local fans routinely packed the old barn, it held just 12,500 fans, 2,000 below the NHL average.
The Jets were nearly saved at the last moment by a group of Winnipeg businessmen, who had agreed to buy the franchise and build it a new arena. But when the deal fell through in April of 1995, the writing was on the wall.
The following month, Jets owner Barry Shenkarow agreed to sell the club for $68 million to a group led by Minneapolis businessman Richard Burke, who along with Steven Gluckstern, planned to move the team 300 miles southeast.
The Twin Cities had been without professional hockey for two seasons after the Minnesota North Stars bolted for Dallas. In the meantime, the Metropolitan Sports Center, the Bloomington home of the North Stars during their existence in Minnesota, had been demolished to make way for the Mall of America.
Burke was prepared to move the Jets to downtown Minneapolis and the five-year-old Target Center, home of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves. But state assistance was needed, in the form of $20 million from the state legislature.
Minnesota's politicians were prepared to talk with Burke in an effort to bring professional hockey back to Minnesota, but according to former Minnesota governor Arne Carlson, it was a one-way street. "Burke was extraordinarily difficult to work with. It was a constant refusal to examine his financials," said Carlson, a two-term Republican from Minneapolis who led the state from 1991 — 99. "We wanted to know who we were doing business with financially. And if we couldn't get the financials, we weren't going to do any kind of a deal. He was extremely silent, and I'm not sure whether the relationship just fizzled, or whether we just severed it. But either way, we were not going forward."
When Minnesota's politicians failed to provide the subsidy, the deal fell through once again allowing the people of Manitoba the chance to save its team. A grassroots campaign raised millions of dollars, and the once bleak future of the Jets in Winnipeg appeared to be on solid ground again.
But in August with tens of thousands of people in the streets of downtown Winnipeg, fans were told their efforts had come up short. The 1995 — 96 season would be its final campaign in southern Manitoba, as the team was indeed being sold to Burke and Gluckstern — this time with the intent of moving the team to Phoenix. In December, the agreement was finalized and hockey in the desert became official: the Phoenix Coyotes were born.
Two years later, the NHL announced Minnesota would receive an expansion franchise, thanks to a joint effort between the state of Minnesota, the city of St. Paul, and businessman Bob Naegele.
The experience this time around couldn't have been more different. "I don't think the process itself, at least the process of getting a team, I don't think it ever stopped [after the potential move of the Jets fell through]. I don't recall how many different leads we had, but there were several," Carlson said. "Obviously, the one that ultimately panned out was when Bob Naegele stepped forth, and he was a perfect delight to work with."
5. Jacques Lemaire
After the Wild hired Doug Risebrough as its first general manager in 1999, the next thing on the franchise's checklist was to hire a head coach to supervise the on-ice product on a day-to-day basis.
There were a number of different paths the Wild could have taken in hiring the position, but in wanting to establish a winning culture early, Risebrough's first call was to his old Montreal Canadiens teammate and former New Jersey Devils coach, Jacques Lemaire.
One of the greatest players in NHL history, Lemaire was a part of eight Stanley Cup championship teams with the Canadiens. As a coach, he led the Devils to the championship in 1995 and helped New Jersey to the playoffs in five of his seven seasons there.
Few in the history of the game had engineered a more impressive winning resumé than Lemaire, who had been out of coaching since leaving the Devils following the 1997 — 98 season.
Getting Lemaire wasn't going to be as simple as flying to Florida — his home since leaving the NHL — and presenting him with a boatload of cash. Risebrough would have to recruit the coach and provide the right opportunity.
Fortunately for Risebrough, he was presenting the exact kind of opportunity that Lemaire craved. So the new GM made a couple of trips to Florida, and the interest on Lemaire's part continued to increase. Once it became apparent that he'd be the first coach of the Wild, Risebrough remembered asking an important question. "We talked a lot about the process. And I remember asking him why he wanted the job," Risebrough recalled. "He said to me, 'It's the ultimate coaching job. Everybody will need coaching.'"
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "100 Things Wild Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Dan Myers.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Andrew Brunette,
1. Becoming the Wild,
2. Building from the Back,
3. Riser,
4. The Minnesota Jets?,
5. Jacques Lemaire,
6. Bob Naegele,
7. Brunett's OT Goal in Colorado,
8. Laying the Groundwork for Parise and Suter,
9. Fourth of July Game Changer,
10. How Koivu Became Captain,
11. Nate Prosser,
12. Minnesota Returns to the Ice,
13. A Run for the Record Books,
14. Marian Gaborik,
15. Watch a Game in Chicago,
16. Bertuzzi's Gaffe,
17. Moose Goheen,
18. Flip of a Coin,
19. Wes Walz,
20. The 2000 NHL Draft,
21. Watch a Game in Winnipeg,
22. St. Paul Civic Center,
23. Bruce Boudreau,
24. Eveleth,
25. The Rotating Captaincy,
26. College Hockey Hotbed,
27. The Boogeyman,
28. Filling an Empty Cupboard,
29. Jake Allen Dashes Minnesota's Hopes of a Long Playoff Run,
30. Roli the Goalie,
31. X Marks the Spot,
32. All Hands on Deck,
33. Zach Parise,
34. Visit Tom Reid's Hockey City Pub,
35. Nick Schultz,
36. Watch a Game at Mariucci,
37. Chuck Fletcher,
38. Minnesota Ousts Coloradoâ&8364;¦Again,
39. Ryan Suter,
40. It's a Jersey Thing,
41. Wild Wins the Northwest,
42. The Nick Leddy Trade,
43. Glen Sonmor,
44. 2016 Stadium Series Game,
45. John Mariucci,
46. The Tourney,
47. Mike Modano,
48. Hockey Day Minnesota,
49. Go to a Bulldogs Game in Duluth,
50. Minnesota Miracle,
51. Mike Yeo,
52. Visit the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame,
53. Walter Bush,
54. Wild Finds the Win Column,
55. Billy Rob,
56. North Stars Become Lone Stars,
57. Aronson Makes History,
58. Watch a Game in Mankato,
59. The Stanchion Game,
60. Bob and Tom,
61. Willard Ikola,
62. 2016 Stadium Series Alumni Game,
63. Mikael Granlund,
64. Not a Bad Consolation Prize,
65. Herb Brooks,
66. Staal's 42-Goal Season,
67. Minnesotans Infiltrate the NHL,
68. 1991 Cup Run,
69. Watch a Game in Las Vegas,
70. Andrew Brunette,
71. Matt Cullen,
72. Walzie Walks Away,
73. Devan Dubnyk,
74. The Wild Anthem,
75. Fenton's Big Chance,
76. Minnesota Fighting Saints,
77. Watch a Game in Grand Forks,
78. Circle of Trust,
79. St. Paul,
80. Matt Johnson's Header,
81. Craig Leipold,
82. Realignment,
83. Darby,
84. Getting Its Guy,
85. Al Shaver,
86. The Burns Trade,
87. Matt Majka,
88. John Mayasich,
89. Elephant Dung,
90. Hit the Ice at the Wells Fargo WinterSkate,
91. Natalie Darwitz,
92. Jac Sperling,
93. The Familiar Voice to Minnesota Hockey Fans,
94. Watch a Game in Bemidji,
95. Neal Broten,
96. "Let's Go Crazy!",
97. Pierre-Marc Bouchard,
98. TRIA Rink,
99. Women's Pro Hockey Comes to Town,
100. Wooger,
Acknowledgments,
Sources,