Minnesota North Stars

[OLYMPIA STADIUM]

Winnipeg Arena

what did you think of winnipeg arena?

I loved the old winnipeg arena and hated to see it torn down last year.i even got to go on the ice after the game with the winnipeg booster club members.
The met center in minnesota was alot like the JLA in detroit.

 

[vivianmb]

th winnipeg arena was a real hockey barn, too bad money ruins sports,eh?

 

[Pioneer13]

Every year, the North Stars had a "Youth Hockey Night" and all of area teams got a handfull of tickets. I remember it seemed like every season we'd get to watch the North Stars play the Kings or Penguins. The building was filled with a bunch of rugrats running around in their jerseys and getting into trouble while their "chaperone" dads sat and drank beer. But it was always the Kings or Penguins...must not have had a lot of demand for either team in those days. My brother got to play a Pee Wee game at the Met before a Stars-Wings game and he said a bunch of the Wings came out to the bench to watch and were really nice guys talking to all he Pee Wees. This would have been in '87 or '88. The game was much different back then although I know there are still plenty of NHLers that would make time for kids before a game like that.
I remember the "Norm Green Sucks" chants that would just start in the middle of a game. I'm talking the whole arena would join in. Mothers with children, grandmothers, Catholic priests, Buddhist monks...they all hated him. Odd thing was, didn't he pump some money into the Met the last couple years before moving. I remember the multicolored seats being replaced with red or burgundy seats.

 

[deathtoespn]

The very first hockey game I ever went to was at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. It was 1985--I was 17, and my elder brother took me to the Devils versus the North Stars. I remember seeing Harold Snepsts lumbering around the ice and Wili Plett banging people and then running away against a smaller Devils team.

The game was so fast the the action was so physical--even between two teams that hardly met and never met in the playoffs. The Devils were tired of getting pushed around and Kenny Daneyko started hitting people and the game was terrific fun.

Ever since then I have followed the North Stars and when they moved to Dallas it was really sad. Just the other night I was watching the North Stars versus the Canadiens, game 7 from the 1980 playoffs. What a great hockey game that was! Gilles Meloche--a Montreal native--defeating his hometown team to not only put them out of the playoffs, but ending their dynasty reign (4 Cups in a row). True, Dryden was gone/Bowman was gone/and like 7 regulars were injured, including Guy Lafleur, but hey, injuries are part of the game.

What I really dig is the games against the Blackhawks from the 1980's. What great games. IF anyone has footage of these games, please let me know.

Another game I would have loved to see was the 1-0 game in 1968 against the St. Louis Blues in the playoffs.

A great book to read that has much of the North Stars history in it is the Wren Blair book, I forget the name of the book but it is by Wren Blair ( the man who "discovered" Bobby Orr). Oh, it is called "The Bird" (funny how long term memory works).

Neil Broten, Denis Maruk, Tom Mccarthy, Brad Maxwell, Curt Giles, Gilles Meloche, Wili Plett, Al Mcadam, I miss those teams those days that hockey!
aloha

 

[billcanuck]

No specific memories of the North Stars per se - except for Dino the Dinosaur! - and watching them on tv as a kid when the Canucks would play them.

However, I do really miss the North Stars. I still have no idea who or what the Wild are. As has mentioned already, the weirdest name in major sport. Boy does this league mess around with its fans.

 

[weaselsuit]

Stars were a financially viable franchise in Minnesota. Norm Green was being greedy and over-extended himself. He banked on being able to contruct a walkway connecting the Met Center to the then-unnamed Mall of America (still called the MegaMall then). That was shot down by the Bloomington zoning commission because it would have to pass over 494 (a major artery for the Twin Cities). Green was also under pressure from the league to renovate the Met center, and would have to do so out of his own pocket (Minnesota is notoriously cheap when it comes to giving money for stadiums). Combine those two with the sexual harrassment charges he was facing at the time, and getting out of town seemed like a good idea.

It had nothing to do with the North Stars not being able to make money. Green didn't want to put his own cash in unless he was going to get a much bigger payday (the walkway) for it.

Essentially correct except the part about 494...

494 was on the opposite side of the Met Center from where the Mall of America was, so the walkway that Norm Green wanted would not have had to cross 494.

 

[weaselsuit]

This thread brings back lots of memories. As I type this, I can look across the room and see the five seats that I own from Met Center; 2 White ones and one black, one green and one gold.

I was a really lucky kid. My father and I had season tickets from 78-81. Fourth row, right next the North Stars bench. I was 10 -12 years old during that time period.

I saw the North Stars at their peak, right when the Cleveland merger happened. They were immediate contenders when the merger happened. The roster really shifted and the main nucleus was guys that came over from Cleveland.

I saw many great games, both in person and on television when they were on the road. Many great brawls, The ending of the Canadiens Cup streak, the ending of the Flyers 35 game unbeaten streak, the first win in Boston as well as the Boston Brawl game. I could go on and on. And I still have Don Beaupre's stick from the only game that they won in the 81 finals that Beaupre gave me after the game.

So many great memories.

 

[kdb209]

Stars were a financially viable franchise in Minnesota. Norm Green was being greedy and over-extended himself.
...
It had nothing to do with the North Stars not being able to make money. Green didn't want to put his own cash in unless he was going to get a much bigger payday (the walkway) for it.

Lets not get too much with the revisionist history - the Stars had financial issues before Norm Green.

That's why the Gunds were looking to relocate the North Stars to Oakland in 1990.

That would have torpedoed San Jose as an expansion market (arguably the plum market of the 90's expansion). The San Jose Arena was already approved by voters and the rights to operate an a team their had been awarded to Howard Baldwin. The Gund's threat to move to Oakland led to the league to negotiate deal where the Gunds sold the North Stars to Baldwin (who later flipped then to Norm Green), the Gunds were awarded the San Jose expansion franchise, and the whole funky dispersal draft / expansion draft arrangement was agreed to - the Sharks got to select 24 players from the North Stars (the Stars were allowed to protect 14 skaters/2 goalies) and then both the Sharks and the North Stars took part in the "normal" expansion draft.