2013-2014 NHL Uniform & Logo Changes

[Lee.]

I actually thought it was the single addition of black, and a lot of it, to an existing color palette that actually worked.

[SCL]

It is weird, seeing all these Minnesotans wear Stars gear at Wild games

Its probably those 8,000 people that supported the North Stars that wear that gear.

It was a chronically mismanaged franchise throughout the 80's playing in an old building on an island in East Bloomington. In a town with four major sports and three major college sports teams at UMN you'd better run a competent franchise and not alienate fans. This 8k fans measures the tiniest actual slice of Northstar fans, don't let a hayseed from Texas convince you otherwise.

[Morgan33]

Agreed with the hem striping, but outside of that, I feel that Lumbus has a fantastic-looking uniform... from the front. It all kinda goes to hell in the back with the Copperplate Narrow numbers and that weird, unrelated-to-anything name font. If they switched both to a narrow version of the font they use in the semi-roundel on their 3rd jerseys, they'd have it nailed in my book.

Yeah that would look great... Using a generic, unrelated font to discard one of the few original aspects to their current uniform set... That font is the only link between their inaugural look and their current one. Ditch copperplate and design a number font that matches the nameplate font.

I still never understood the black. If CBJ would have stuck with this design, even through the Edge redesign process, we could have seen another franchise go down the path of "BFBS". Never was there any black in the BJ's color scheme. I'm pretty happy with the step that CBJ took with their jerseys after the Edge redesign. They managed to keep the same basic look while eliminating black, an irrelevant color that was used as a gimmick in the first place.

At least on the on the pre-edge set, the shoulder yoke and hem stripes contrasted with the rest of the jersey... Maybe making them black wasn't the most original idea but I'll take it over having a jersey that is completely navy with thin red and white piping serving as the only point of interest besides the logo's.

[The Giant Pacific Octopus]

It was a chronically mismanaged franchise throughout the 80's

And yet the team went to 2 conference finals and one Stanley Cup final during that decade, won 9 playoff rounds, and made the playoffs in 8 of those 10 years. They had the type of success that decade that most franchises would kill for.

Ask Leaf fans whose team is going to make the playoffs now for the first time in almost a full decade (2004), and Flames fans whose team has either mised the playoffs or been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs from 1990 through 2013 with the exception of one year (2004). If Minnesota was such a great hockey town there is no excuse for that lack of support.

This 8k fans measures the tiniest actual slice of Northstar fans

Yeah the rest of these "fans" stayed home. It wasn't just the attendance that stunk but merchandise sales and local TV numbers were just as poor. If those are fans that I would hate to actually encounter non-fans.

[SCL]

It was a chronically mismanaged franchise throughout the 80's

And yet the team went to 2 conference finals and one Stanley Cup final during that decade, won 9 playoff rounds, and made the playoffs in 8 of those 10 years. They had the type of success that decade that most franchises would kill for.

Ask Leaf fans whose team is going to make the playoffs now for the first time in almost a full decade (2004), and Flames fans whose team has either mised the playoffs or been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs from 1990 through 2013 with the exception of one year (2004). If Minnesota was such a great hockey town there is no excuse for that lack of support.

This 8k fans measures the tiniest actual slice of Northstar fans

Yeah the rest of these "fans" stayed home. It wasn't just the attendance that stunk but merchandise sales and local TV numbers were just as poor. If those are fans that I would hate to actually encounter non-fans.

It was a chronically mismanaged franchise throughout the 80's

And yet the team went to 2 conference finals and one Stanley Cup final during that decade, won 9 playoff rounds, and made the playoffs in 8 of those 10 years. They had the type of success that decade that most franchises would kill for.

Ask Leaf fans whose team is going to make the playoffs now for the first time in almost a full decade (2004), and Flames fans whose team has either mised the playoffs or been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs from 1990 through 2013 with the exception of one year (2004). If Minnesota was such a great hockey town there is no excuse for that lack of support.

This 8k fans measures the tiniest actual slice of Northstar fans

Yeah the rest of these "fans" stayed home. It wasn't just the attendance that stunk but merchandise sales and local TV numbers were just as poor. If those are fans that I would hate to actually encounter non-fans.

Interesting theory, the success of the Wild directly negates it. Once again some outsider with zero knowledge of what went on. Where are your merchandise figures? TV? You compared downtown Toronto to East Bloomington?

"Minnesotans were given 10,000 lakes and frosty winters, and they took the hint. There are an estimated 49,000 people registered to play organized hockey in the state, and the Minnesota high school championship last March drew 16,470 at the St. Paul Civic Center and had a television audience of 300,000. Youngsters dream of growing up to skate for the University of Minnesota, and adults return to their childhood by watching the Golden Gophers. Peer into a Minnesota resident's eyes and you see the reflection of his soul. His pupils are dilated to the size of a puck.

So how can it be that enthusiasm for professional hockey has thawed in the Twin Cities? Even though Gordon and George Gund, the owners of the NHL's Minnesota North Stars until last spring, left the freezer door open for nearly 10 years—in the process presenting a textbook example of how not to run a sports franchise—how could Minnesotans' affection for the pro game have so melted that opening night of the 1990-91 season drew only 5,730 fans to the 15,093-seat Metropolitan Sports Center? As if to prove that the attendance figure isn't a misprint, the second and third games at the Met Center drew 5,970 and 5,280, respectively. The fourth game brought out 9,129 to sec Norris Division rival Chicago. It also brought a brave declaration from Norman Green, the North Stars' new owner, of better times ahead. "I'm certain that within a year we'll turn this thing around and within two years we'll be sold out," he said before the game.

Minnesota played dismally that night and lost 4-1, yet the fans hardly bothered to boo. At this point in their seven-year attendance slide, the North Stars would prefer anger to apathy. The 11,354 average attendance last season, inflated by an estimated 3,000 discounted and free tickets, was almost 4,000 less than the league average. More daunting to Minnesota's hopes of recovery is a bizarre agreement the new owners signed with the Gunds. The deal kept the North Stars in Minnesota but will strip the team of a large number of its prospects, who will play for the expansion franchise that the Gunds will get in San Jose next season. Small wonder that the euphoria many Minnesotans felt when the Gunds sold the team to Howard Baldwin and Morris Belzberg has yet to be reflected at the box office.

Green—who has since bought the North Stars from Baldwin and Belzberg—put the home opener on local TV, a treat for Twin Cities fans since Minnesota's games are usually telecast only on cable, which is not available in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The game drew an estimated TV audience of 200,000. This reconfirmed the obvious—people in Minnesota like hockey—but failed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between enjoying the sport and paying to watch the North Stars play.

There was a time—the 1981-82 season, which followed the North Stars' lone appearance in the Stanley Cup finals—when 15,220 fans packed the Met Center for each game. Now the question is, Have the North Stars made too many mistakes to win those supporters back? The challenge is complicated by the fact that in addition to facing competition from college and high school hockey, the North Stars are going pucks-to-hoops against the novelty of the two-year-old NBA Timberwolves, who drew 26,160 a game last season in the Metrodome and will move this season to the newly opened Target Center in downtown Minneapolis.

Some fans, however, remain faithful. Despite the North Stars' poor draft choices over the years and a chaos of player and coaching changes, John Sullivan, an office supplies salesman from Bloomington, still goes to about 10 games a year. He describes friends who no longer attend as not necessarily disenchanted, merely suspicious. "I think most people are sitting on the fence, waiting to see if the North Stars get better," Sullivan says. One theory is that those fences run right to the Timberwolves' ticket windows. "Since I've come here," says right wing Brian Bellows, who has played for Minnesota since 1982, "I saw the Twins become the hot team, and now their attendance has cooled off. Basketball is new and exciting now, and downtown is the place to go. I think if we show some improvement, we can get the average up to 10,000 to 11,000 a game. I really wonder, though, if we'll ever get 15,000 regularly again."

Green insists that the North Stars will get crowds that large. He says the franchise, which the Gunds announced lost $6 million last season, needs to draw only 8,000 to break even, a number that seems low. Green has raised ticket prices $3 to $5 for most seats (the scale is now $9.50 to $28.50), fired 33 of the 60 people in the front office and moved 900 building operations people off his payroll. He wants an organization that is lean, mean and, eventually, green. He has established residence in the Twin Cities—he is a native of Calgary—to demonstrate that the North Stars are in Minnesota to stay.

Green, a shopping mall developer who formerly owned 18% of the Calgary Flames, comes from an organization that has never skimped on player development. The North Stars, who through Sunday are 1-6-2 after finishing 36-40-4 in 1989-90, obviously need an upgrade in personnel. Green says he has no intention of cutting corners there.

Money was never the problem with the Gunds. Judgment and distance were. After disbanding their failing Cleveland Barons franchise and buying the North Stars in 1978, the Gunds merged the two rosters. George, who lives in San Francisco, and Gordon, who's based in Princeton, N.J., were infrequent visitors to the Met Center. To rebuild a North Star franchise that was even less competitive than it is today, the Gunds put their faith in Lou Nanne, a charter player for the North Stars (the franchise began operation in '67-68). As general manager, Nanne parlayed the extra players from the combined rosters into additional draft choices, a move that appeared to set up Minnesota as a future powerhouse.

A trade with Detroit gave the North Stars the second pick in the 1982 draft, and a deal with Boston, which had the first pick that year, enabled Nanne to take Bellows, the most highly touted junior since Wayne Gretzky. Nanne then obtained from Pittsburgh what would become the first choice in the 1983 draft. But instead of selecting either Pat LaFontaine or Steve Yzerman, who turned out to be dominating NHL players, Nanne took Brian Lawton. Lawton, a center, never scored more than 44 points in five disappointing seasons with the North Stars and, after stints with four other NHL teams, is currently playing for Phoenix of the International Hockey League.

Some of Nanne's deals worked, but in the long term the North Stars declined because he drafted terribly. From 1980 to '85, Nanne selected just six players who are still playing regularly in the NHL. Nanne, now Minnesota's vice-president of marketing and public relations, points out that five players—including former All-Star defenseman Craig Hartsburg—had their careers ended prematurely by injuries. That was bad luck, but not having replacements for them was bad planning.

For a few years Minnesota maintained respectable point totals in what had become a bad Norris Division. But the team was deteriorating, and Nanne now admits that it took him too long to realize which of his scouts had the best judgment.

He also went through six coaches. When Herb Brooks, a local hero at the University of Minnesota before he coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1980, was fired by the New York Rangers in 1985, Nanne tried but could not reach an agreement with Brooks.

Nanne finally landed Brooks for the 1987-88 season, but Brooks couldn't turn Minnesota around. When Nanne, his nerves as frayed as his reputation, quit for health reasons halfway through that 19-48-13 season, Brooks asked Gordon Gund to make him G.M. Gund, who didn't want to combine both jobs, hired Jack Ferreira, the Rangers' chief scout. Brooks then stepped down and went public with his hurt. Season tickets, which had peaked at 10,400 in '81-82 and were more than 6,000 when Brooks became coach, plummeted to fewer than 4,000.

Still, Nanne's last two drafts did yield some prospects, and Ferreira's choice for coach, Pierre Page, turned out to be a good one. The North Stars improved by 19 points in 1988-89 and attendance was rising. Then came the Jan. 30, 1990, announcement by the Gunds that unless the Metropolitan Sports and Facilities Commission came up with $15 million for improvements to the Met Center and fans bought an additional 6,000 season tickets within three weeks, the franchise would move. The Gunds made no attempt to sell those tickets. As prospective buyers interested in keeping the North Stars in the Twin Cities emerged, it became obvious that the Gunds didn't want to sell them. They wanted to move the team to the Bay Area before the NHL expanded there. The league, meanwhile, wanted to keep the franchise in Minnesota and bowed to the Gunds' demands for an expansion franchise on the West Coast.

On May 9, Baldwin, the former managing partner of the Hartford Whalers, and Belzberg, a retired rental-car executive, bought the North Stars for $31 million. The Gunds, in essence, traded the North Stars plus $19 million—the NHL had established a price of $50 million for an expansion team—for a new franchise in San Jose. The solution appeared to satisfy all parties, but the NHL gave the Gunds more than just a new territory. Unconscionably, the league allowed them to strip the rebuilding North Stars of their farm system.

At the end of this season, Minnesota can protect only 14 skaters and two goalies, all of whom must have played at least 50 NHL games by the end of 1989-90. The Sharks, as the new San Jose team has been aptly named, then will also claim 14 players and two goalies from the North Star system, not including any draft picks from 1990 and '91. Finally, each team will alternately select from among the remaining 60-plus players that Minnesota has under contract or holds the rights to. The North Stars will also get to pick 10 of the players made available from the rosters of the other existing NHL clubs in the expansion draft, but these players are likely to be marginal veterans rather than prospects. Minnesota has reportedly cut a deal with San Jose that will send left wing Ulf Dahlen to the Sharks in exchange for the North Stars' being allowed to retain its most promising young defenseman, Neil Wilkinson. Still, Minnesota figures to lose four or five of its best prospects. At least two of them, right wing Mike Craig and defenseman Dean Kolstad, are now playing for the North Stars.

"Mike is going to help us this year, and then he's going to be gone," says Bellows. "We're developing him for somebody else.

"I was looking at some team pictures the other day, and it reminded me that my first few years here we had a helluva team. Now I'm on my ninth coaching change in nine years. We were just getting used to Pierre [who left in May to become general manager for the Quebec Nordiques and was replaced by former Montreal Canadien Bob Gainey]. It looked like we were making progress, and now we're back to square one again."

Lacking a superior offensive defense-man, another hard-driving scorer to match Bellows and a feisty center, the North Stars are average in almost every aspect of the game. They do, however, have a potential superstar in Mike Modano, their prize for finishing last in the NHL three seasons ago. Modano, a speedy center, had 29 goals and 75 points in his rookie season last year.

Meanwhile, Minnesota is beginning to act more professionally off the ice. Green has eliminated all freebie tickets, and ushers at the Met Center no longer look the other way when fans move down from the cheap seats. The only discounts Green has offered so far are family plans. "We want to promote the idea that if you want the best seats you have to buy season tickets," he says. "The ultimate marketing tool is scarcity. The best thing we had going for us in Calgary is that it was hard to get into the Saddledome."

It couldn't be easier getting into the Met Center these days. Nor is it tough to tell the owner what you think. Green shakes every hand he can reach as he walks the corridors between periods. The customers thank him for saving the team, for eliminating smoking in the corridors and for recently re-signing Bellows. They also confront him about the ticket prices.

"Norm, wouldn't you rather have cheaper tickets and fill the place?" asks one man.

Green smiles and says, "I'd rather fill it up with higher-priced tickets."

Green, who has already put $2 million in improvements into the 25-year-old Met Center, plans to add more seats. The North Stars' generous lease makes it astounding that the Gunds could lose as much money as they claim they did last season. Minnesota pays only $200,000 a year to rent the Met Center, collects favorable shares of the parking and concession revenues and has control of the building to promote other events. Not so favorable is the deal that pillages the farm system, but Green is trying to renegotiate with the Gunds and seems confident that at least some prospects can be saved.

"We're asking the people to be patient and we're going to earn their support," says Green. "We'll get them back. This is hockey in Minnesota. It's not Tampa."

His theory is based on the obvious. You have to give a person in Minnesota a reason not to come to a hockey game. For too long the North Stars have been providing just that."

Find this article at:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136270/index.htm

[IceCap]

It was a chronically mismanaged franchise throughout the 80's

And yet the team went to 2 conference finals and one Stanley Cup final during that decade, won 9 playoff rounds, and made the playoffs in 8 of those 10 years. They had the type of success that decade that most franchises would kill for.

Ask Leaf fans whose team is going to make the playoffs now for the first time in almost a full decade (2004), and Flames fans whose team has either mised the playoffs or been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs from 1990 through 2013 with the exception of one year (2004). If Minnesota was such a great hockey town there is no excuse for that lack of support.

This 8k fans measures the tiniest actual slice of Northstar fans

Yeah the rest of these "fans" stayed home. It wasn't just the attendance that stunk but merchandise sales and local TV numbers were just as poor. If those are fans that I would hate to actually encounter non-fans.

Interesting theory, the success of the Wild directly negates it.

Not at all. It was a classic case of Minnesota hockey fans not realizing what they had until it was lost. The success of the Wild doesn't change the fact that North Stars support was pathetic for what should have been, and is now, a rabid market.

Once again some outsider with zero knowledge of what went on. Where are your merchandise figures? TV? You compared downtown Toronto to East Bloomington?

I do remember hearing that the North Stars added black specifically because merchandise sales were near the bottom of the league. No idea if they jumped up after the black was introduced, but sales were pretty poor for a while. I mean Octopus here is full of hockey-related knowledge and is a well known Stars fan. I'm inclined to believe him that the tv numbers were crap unless he can be proven wrong.

And he didn't compare downtown Toronto to East Bloomington. He said Leafs fans have stuck by this team over the past decade of futility while North Stars fans couldn't be arsed to show up for games during a decade of sustained success.

I'm really happy that the Wild have caught on, because the Twin Cities really should be a keystone NHL market. It's just obvious that the market didn't care for the NHL game the first go-around.

[Sodboy13]

The SI article mentions that most North Stars games were on cable, and the Twin Cities weren't wired for cable yet in 1990 (!). So there's your ratings hole.

[SCL]

It was a chronically mismanaged franchise throughout the 80's

And yet the team went to 2 conference finals and one Stanley Cup final during that decade, won 9 playoff rounds, and made the playoffs in 8 of those 10 years. They had the type of success that decade that most franchises would kill for.

Ask Leaf fans whose team is going to make the playoffs now for the first time in almost a full decade (2004), and Flames fans whose team has either mised the playoffs or been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs from 1990 through 2013 with the exception of one year (2004). If Minnesota was such a great hockey town there is no excuse for that lack of support.

This 8k fans measures the tiniest actual slice of Northstar fans

Yeah the rest of these "fans" stayed home. It wasn't just the attendance that stunk but merchandise sales and local TV numbers were just as poor. If those are fans that I would hate to actually encounter non-fans.

Interesting theory, the success of the Wild directly negates it.

Not at all. It was a classic case of Minnesota hockey fans not realizing what they had until it was lost. The success of the Wild doesn't change the fact that North Stars support was pathetic for what should have been, and is now, a rabid market.

Once again some outsider with zero knowledge of what went on. Where are your merchandise figures? TV? You compared downtown Toronto to East Bloomington?

I do remember hearing that the North Stars added black specifically because merchandise sales were near the bottom of the league. No idea if they jumped up after the black was introduced, but sales were pretty poor for a while. I mean Octopus here is full of hockey-related knowledge and is a well known Stars fan. I'm inclined to believe him that the tv numbers were crap unless he can be proven wrong.

And he didn't compare downtown Toronto to East Bloomington. He said Leafs fans have stuck by this team over the past decade of futility while North Stars fans couldn't be arsed to show up for games during a decade of sustained success.

I'm really happy that the Wild have caught on, because the Twin Cities really should be a keystone NHL market. It's just obvious that the market didn't care for the NHL game the first go-around.

Apparently drawing 12.5k fans/ game to East Bloomington (2.5k under capacity) over the team's history indicates not caring for the team.

[OnWis97]

On 4/15/2013 at 9:35 PM, Sodboy13 said:

The SI article mentions that most North Stars games were on cable, and the Twin Cities weren't wired for cable yet in 1990 (!). So there's your ratings hole.

 

I don't quite understand what that means. While my parents would not do it, I definitely knew plenty of people in the TCs with cable in the 1980s.

I was just a kid so I probably did not have a clue, but I thought they had decent support. But a look at the attendance shows some shockingly bad years. Nevertheless, I think they could have survived. Norm Green caused a few problems. This was a different era so the 1991 Stanley cup finals were stuck with local coverage. And Norm put them on ... Pay Per View. That was awfully short sighted in terms of relationship-building with fans. Even in Minnesota, the NHL cannot touch MLB or the NFL. 

As for attendance, I think it was a secondary cause of the team moving. There was some serious bandwagoning going on (particularly after the finals appearances)...part of the issue was the ol' Tampa Bay Rays excuse: the location of the arena. Had they moved downtown, they'd have probably drawn better. It was a great arena from a sight line perspective (still often considered the best to this day), but the location was less than convenient...yes it's by that stupid mall, but it's still an awful location for anyone in the north metro (or those working downtown) to get to for a 7:00 Tuesday game. And they were apparently getting serious about a move to the Target Center. According to this book (I think a quote from Lou Nanne), the North Stars and Timberwolves were hung up on revenue from the advertisements placed on the boards. Ugh. I really believe that downtown location would have helped their numbers.

But the big thing was that Normy wanted public money. The Met Center, as great as it was for Joe Fan, had no luxury boxes and was even by then probably a lower-revenue arena. The Target Center move, along with increasing overall attendance, would have helped with revenue. But that did not work out and nobody was willing to build him an arena or provide money (I want to say it was only like $15 million) for Met Center upgrades. So in true Minnesota fashion, we called his bluff and spent a bunch more money to acquire a different franchise (with a silly name) a few years later.

They also spent most of their history (including their last nine years) mired in mediocrity. Yes they had a finals trip in 1991, but that was with the 17th best record in the (23 team?) NHL.

[Cosmic]

Back around 1990, there would have been lots of smaller cable companies that have since been merged with/into the behemoths we have today. Perhaps the team took a better money deal from a company that didn't have territorial rights to the Twin Cities.

[SCL]

Back around 1990, there would have been lots of smaller cable companies that have since been merged with/into the behemoths we have today. Perhaps the team took a better money deal from a company that didn't have territorial rights to the Twin Cities.

Correct, Paragon Cable didn't reach agreement with MSC until 1992 and MSC wasn't available to the full metro until 1994; keeping in mind cable subscriptions were a small portion of what they are today.

[Sport]

RE: the Blue Jackets old third jersey ----> one of the best uniforms an NHL team has ever worn. I have two of them (one blank, one a David Vyborny).

[habsfan1]

RE: the Blue Jackets old third jersey ----> one of the best uniforms an NHL team has ever worn. I have two of them (one blank, one a David Vyborny).

Hence, the reason why it keeps popping back up all the time. It's because it was THAT good.

[ksupilot]

Finally got one on Ebay brand new for $75, probably one of my favorite jerseys I own.

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

While I don't care about the jackets in any shape or form, when Columbus introduced that alt, I had to order it. I wear it from time to time just for the heck of it.

[KrazyHorse]

The SI article mentions that most North Stars games were on cable, and the Twin Cities weren't wired for cable yet in 1990 (!). So there's your ratings hole.

I don't quite understand what that means. While my parents would not do it, I definitely knew plenty of people in the TCs with cable in the 1980s.

I was just a kid so I probably did not have a clue, but I thought they had decent support. But a look at the attendanceshows some shockingly bad years. Nevertheless, I think they could have survived. Norm Green caused a few problems. This was a different era so the 1991 Stanley cup finals were stuck with local coverage. And Norm put them on ... Pay Per View. That was awfully short sighted in terms of relationship-building with fans. Even in Minnesota, the NHL cannot touch MLB or the NFL. Then there was his sexual harassment charge.

As for attendance, I think it was a secondary cause of the team moving. There was some serious bandwagoning going on (particularly after the finals appearances)...part of the issue was the ol' Tampa Bay Rays excuse: the location of the arena. Had they moved downtown, they'd have probably drawn better. It was a great arena from a sight line perspective (still often considered the best to this day), but the location was less than convenient...yes it's by that stupid mall, but it's still an awful location for anyone in the north metro (or those working downtown) to get to for a 7:00 Tuesday game. And they were apparently getting serious about a move to the Target Center. According to this book (I think a quote from Lou Nanne), the North Stars and Timberwolves were hung up on revenue from the advertisements placed on the boards. Ugh. I really believe that downtown location would have helped their numbers.

But the big thing was that Normy wanted public money. The Met Center, as great as it was for Joe Fan, had no luxury boxes and was even by then probably a lower-revenue arena. The Target Center move, along with increasing overall attendance, would have helped with revenue. But that did not work out and nobody was willing to build him an arena or provide money (I want to say it was only like $15 million) for Met Center upgrades. So in true Minnesota fashion, we called his bluff and spent a bunch more money to acquire a different franchise (with a silly name) a few years later.

They also spent most of their history (including their last nine years) mired in mediocrity. Yes they had a finals trip in 1991, but that was with the 17th best record in the (23 team?) NHL.

A Tale of Two Cities...

Norm Green is vilified in Minnesota for moving their beloved North Stars to the hockey wasteland of Dallas.

Norm Green is given standing ovations in Dallas for delivering their beloved Stars from the unappreciative Minnesota hockey snobs.

No matter which way you look at it the team is more successful in Dallas than it ever was in Minnesota. Like any owner Green wanted more money. Minneapolis/St Paul would not help him, much like they wouldn't help any other owner. Dallas was more than happy to accept them and filled the arena.

I understand the bad feelings about the team moving. It would break my heart if the Stars moved to another city. But no one should blame the fans or city of Dallas. They did not steal the North Stars away. If it wasn't Dallas it would've been Kansas City or some other city. Fans need to accept the fact that both cities now benefit, even though now one benefits at the cost of the other.

[OnWis97]

The SI article mentions that most North Stars games were on cable, and the Twin Cities weren't wired for cable yet in 1990 (!). So there's your ratings hole.

I don't quite understand what that means. While my parents would not do it, I definitely knew plenty of people in the TCs with cable in the 1980s.

I was just a kid so I probably did not have a clue, but I thought they had decent support. But a look at the attendanceshows some shockingly bad years. Nevertheless, I think they could have survived. Norm Green caused a few problems. This was a different era so the 1991 Stanley cup finals were stuck with local coverage. And Norm put them on ... Pay Per View. That was awfully short sighted in terms of relationship-building with fans. Even in Minnesota, the NHL cannot touch MLB or the NFL. Then there was his sexual harassment charge.

As for attendance, I think it was a secondary cause of the team moving. There was some serious bandwagoning going on (particularly after the finals appearances)...part of the issue was the ol' Tampa Bay Rays excuse: the location of the arena. Had they moved downtown, they'd have probably drawn better. It was a great arena from a sight line perspective (still often considered the best to this day), but the location was less than convenient...yes it's by that stupid mall, but it's still an awful location for anyone in the north metro (or those working downtown) to get to for a 7:00 Tuesday game. And they were apparently getting serious about a move to the Target Center. According to this book (I think a quote from Lou Nanne), the North Stars and Timberwolves were hung up on revenue from the advertisements placed on the boards. Ugh. I really believe that downtown location would have helped their numbers.

But the big thing was that Normy wanted public money. The Met Center, as great as it was for Joe Fan, had no luxury boxes and was even by then probably a lower-revenue arena. The Target Center move, along with increasing overall attendance, would have helped with revenue. But that did not work out and nobody was willing to build him an arena or provide money (I want to say it was only like $15 million) for Met Center upgrades. So in true Minnesota fashion, we called his bluff and spent a bunch more money to acquire a different franchise (with a silly name) a few years later.

They also spent most of their history (including their last nine years) mired in mediocrity. Yes they had a finals trip in 1991, but that was with the 17th best record in the (23 team?) NHL.

A Tale of Two Cities...

Norm Green is vilified in Minnesota for moving their beloved North Stars to the hockey wasteland of Dallas.

Norm Green is given standing ovations in Dallas for delivering their beloved Stars from the unappreciative Minnesota hockey snobs.

No matter which way you look at it the team is more successful in Dallas than it ever was in Minnesota. Like any owner Green wanted more money. Minneapolis/St Paul would not help him, much like they wouldn't help any other owner. Dallas was more than happy to accept them and filled the arena.

I understand the bad feelings about the team moving. It would break my heart if the Stars moved to another city. But no one should blame the fans or city of Dallas. They did not steal the North Stars away. If it wasn't Dallas it would've been Kansas City or some other city. Fans need to accept the fact that both cities now benefit, even though now one benefits at the cost of the other.

You seem on the defensive about...well nothing. Nobody has said anything about Dallas or its fans in this thread. In fact "unappreciative Minnesota hockey snobs" is really the only shot hurled at fans regarding this topic. That and admiral's barbs about how much people in Minnesota like high school hockey.

Admittedly, it was a bit of salt in many of our wounds to lose our team to a place like Dallas. At the time, sun belt hockey (outside of the Expansion 6 Kings) was fairly new (maybe the Lighting had been established) and it was odd to see the team packing up for a place where nobody skates on a pond. I was a teenager and did not understand one plain truth. Dallas was a better NHL market at the time. Even now with our nice new arena, it probably still is at least as good of a hockey market...it's not about how many fans have played hockey or about hockey knowledge (which I doubt is equal even now, but what do I know). It's about the ability to make money. And it was there in Dallas. Now it's there in both places. Yes the Stars were better upon their arrival to Dallas. Yes, some other team would have won the cup in 1999 had the North Stars survived in Minnesota. I know all this. Additionally, Dallas's four teams are historically better than Minnesota's (with the possible exception of MLB, but even then it's roughly even), Texas has better weather, better barbeque, more knowledgeable hockey fans, and should I go on?

I guess the main point of my replay is to ask what the hell you are whining about. I ripped the owner a bit had the gall to suggest that it could have worked in Minnesota, and said nothing about Dallas or its fans. And I don't think anyone else in this thread did either.

[The Giant Pacific Octopus]

Interesting theory, the success of the Wild directly negates it. Once again some outsider with zero knowledge of what went on. Where are your merchandise figures? TV? You compared downtown Toronto to East Bloomington?

I got my info from the Hockey News. I had subscribed to the HN in the 1980s and 1990s and read all the coverage within (coverage from actual sports writers from that city) as well as ample coverage the team got up here for being in the same division as the Leafs. The North Stars were ranked 21st in the NHL in terms of merchandise sales. Not too good when there are only 21 teams in the league is it? And as for the Wild, its funny how they had no where near the kind of success that the North Stars did (2 playoff series wins in 13 years vs 9 playoff series wins in 10 years for the North Stars) and yet can sell out every game, but when the North Stars slightly struggled the fans jump off the bandwagon in mass numbers. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for the "fans" when the team left?

"I'm certain that within a year we'll turn this thing around and within two years we'll be sold out," he said before the game.

Despite a miracle run to the Finals the first year Green owned the team its sad that that didn't happen.

The 11,354 average attendance last season, inflated by an estimated 3,000 discounted and free tickets, was almost 4,000 less than the league average.

And this was after 2 straight playoff appearances and a great 7 game series against the powerhouse Blackhawks. Wow how quick they abandon in Minnesota eh?

I think if we show some improvement, we can get the average up to 10,000 to 11,000 a game. I really wonder, though, if we'll ever get 15,000 regularly again."

Brian Bellows says the same thing that Dave Gagner said (I linked it in my earlier post). Buts its Norm Greens fault the team left right? Minnesota was such a great hockey town.

Nanne finally landed Brooks for the 1987-88 season, but Brooks couldn't turn Minnesota around. When Nanne, his nerves as frayed as his reputation, quit for health reasons halfway through that 19-48-13 season, Brooks asked Gordon Gund to make him G.M. Gund, who didn't want to combine both jobs, hired Jack Ferreira, the Rangers' chief scout. Brooks then stepped down and went public with his hurt. Season tickets, which had peaked at 10,400 in '81-82 and were more than 6,000 when Brooks became coach, plummeted to fewer than 4,000.

Pathetic. Just 7 years after a Finals run. 4 years after a conference final run and 3 years after a series victory the "fans" were that quick to abandon the North Stars. Really? They miss the playoffs 2 years in a row and draw only 4,000 season ticket holders. Interestingly the Wild have won only 2 playoff rounds in 13 years, continuously miss the playoffs and draw almost 20,000 fans. Yep. People in Minnesota really sure did care a lot about the North Stars. Heck even in Dallas they didn't abandon the team that quickly.

Meanwhile, Minnesota is beginning to act more professionally off the ice. Green has eliminated all freebie tickets, and ushers at the Met Center no longer look the other way when fans move down from the cheap seats.

Cant say I blame the guy. Freebie tickets weren't working in such a hockey hotbed like Minnesota. The guy needs to make money.

Green, who has already put $2 million in improvements into the 25-year-old Met Center, plans to add more seats.

But I thought that Green was this evil ogre who had planned to move the team out of Minnesota the moment he bought them. Well thats what Minnesota hockey fans have been telling me for years. He even changed the logo to just the word "Stars" because he was going to move the team as soon as he purchased them. Yet here he is spending his own money renovating the building that the city should be renovating for him.

"We're asking the people to be patient and we're going to earn their support," says Green. "We'll get them back. This is hockey in Minnesota. It's not Tampa."

And yet even in Tampa, fans didn't abandon the Lightning as quickly as "fans" abandoned the North Stars in Minnesota did.

His theory is based on the obvious. You have to give a person in Minnesota a reason not to come to a hockey game. For too long the North Stars have been providing just that."

Hmmm. I guess 8 playoff appearances and 9 playoff series victories in 10 years wasn't a reason to come support the team eh?

Thanks for that article because it just reinforces my belief that people didn't care about the North Stars. The North Stars were far more successful than the Wild and yet the Wild can sell out every game while the North Stars at one point were down to just 4,000 season ticket holders. Really?

You know what people in Minnesota remind me of? They remind me of a guy with a dog.

Now that guy doesn't give his dog much attention. He leaves it locked up out back in the yard all day. Doesn't play with it and hardly acknowledges it. He simply takes the dog for granted. Then the dog dies.

The guy soon realizes how much he missed having a dog and was able to get a new one. He's not going to make the same mistake again. This time he's doing it right. Even though this new dog wasn't as friendly and loyal like the other dog (successful) he made sure to treat this dog right. He let it stay in the house. Played with it all day. Feed it the best food. Took him for long walks etc. He basically treated this dog the way he should have treated his earlier dog. It took the originals dog death to make him see how much he really liked dogs and how he should have treated his original dog.

That how I feel about Minnesota hockey fans. They took the North Stars for granted. Only supported them when they were very successful. The minute the team slightly struggled they ran off and abandoned ship. In other words they took the team for granted. The the team moves. And "fans" soon realize how much they missed having an NHL team. After getting a new one they were going to make sure that they were not going to make the same mistake again. This time they are supporting them. Even though this new team wasn't as successful and didn't make the playoffs as often or won as many playoff rounds as the other team, they made sure they would be there. They filled the building with almost 20,000 fans a night. Bought tons of merchandise and supported the team through thick and thin (and there was a lot of thin).They basically treated this new team the way he should have treated the earlier team. It took the originals team death to make them see how much they really liked NHL hockey and how they should have treated the original team..

[SCL]

I'm not going to argue with a guy who doesn't understand or refuses to learn the difference between a team in downtown St Paul and one in East Bloomington and one with every game on TV vs one absent from TV. Moving to the Target Center was the correct move regardless if Dallas became a success or not, Norm Green was the wrong owner at the wrong time who bought the team for the sole purpose of extorting money for a new arena (i.e. Clay Bennett) and did not act in good faith.

[ksupilot]

The more I see the Blue Jackets' current jerseys (not including the alternate which I think blows) the more I don't understand the problems so many people seem to have with it. I think it's really quite good. Nothing outstanding but far from being terrible. I also don't mind the red pants even on the away jerseys. They're called the blue JACKETS, not the blue pants. It's irrelevant to me what color their pants are.

The CBJ away is perfect. Best out of their current jerseys, and I'd even rank it in my top 5 for the entire NHL.