July 4, 2012 will forever be a turning point in the history of the Minnesota Wild NHL franchise. A state that affectionately billed themselves “The State of Hockey” upon their return to the league in 2000 has a decades long history of dominance and player development at all levels of the sport—from juniors to high school through college—but has never won a Stanley Cup.
Despite this fact, that has been questioned by many out-of-state observers who really don’t understand the label, last Wednesday was a great day and one that will forever shift the perception of this Western Conference team.
As the Star Tribune’s Jim Souhan accurately pointed out, famous athletes in general typically ignore the Minnesota market when deciding where to play. Its one thing to re-sign your own drafted star, which more often than not will end up leaving Minnesota, but it's entirely another to sign the undisputed premier free agent on the market in any given sport—and this time Minnesota got both on each side of the puck.
Why hadn’t this free agent coup happened before in Minnesota?
Its hard to explain why a sta ...
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Article written by Joe Mikolai
Parise, Suter Are Franchise-Defining Signings for the Minnesota Wild
July 7th, 2012 by Joe Mikolai Leave a reply »
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