The Minnesota Wild organization has enjoyed a very long honeymoon period in the Twin Cities. Their long home sellout streak has realistically come to an end, even though the team continues to announce sellouts because they are giving away tickets.
The team struggled mightily out of the gate to find composure under new head coach, Todd Richards. They lost the face of their franchise, Marion Gaborik, to free-agency (New York Rangers).
Fans in Minnesota are not so hockey-starved after an entire decade of professional hockey. When they let go of Jacques Lemaire as head coach last Spring it signaled a new era of Wild hockey. The franchise was letting go of what remained of those expansion years. They are now a permanent NHL franchise, they are a profitable NHL franchise, but in large part have been a very unsuccessful NHL franchise on the ice.
One miracle run in 2003 where they came back from two 3-1 deficits to earn a spot in the Western Conference Finals is their only serious playoff run. They really never should have been there to begin with. The team was not that good through most of that season and they got lucky with hot goaltending from Dwayne ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Dan Adams
Minnesota Wild Struggling To Sell Their “New Team”
December 27th, 2009 by Dan Adams Leave a reply »
Advertisement