I was 10 years old when the Wild came back to MN so I was in a bit of a weird spot...I was way too young to know anything about the North Stars except for the fact that they existed and when the Wild came back I was a Football/Basketball/Baseball kid. I think I had played some hockey video games but when it came to actually watching the games I couldn't get over how boring I thought it was. 'Ugh, where is all of the scoring? What are all of these weird rules?' All of the cliches.
Then 2003 happened, and like most of the state, I was watching the playoff games and hoping for the impossible...still not really knowing what was happening, but hey, it was the playoffs. It still didn't quite grab hold of me at that point, and I'm not 100% sure when the exact moment was that I was hooked, but it was probably attending a game in person. Once I started to understand what was actually happening during a game, and how much more actual gameplay there is when compared to other sports, it's actually gotten more and more difficult to watch football/basketball/baseball. In the span of the 18 years I've gone from basically not caring that the team existed to almost never missing a game live and becoming a season ticket holder with my friends. As silly as it sounds, hockey is a huge part of my life and I'm extremely happy about that.
Long story short, even though it was likely inevitable for pro hockey to come back here regardless of what Naegele himself was able to do, he was still one of the people responsible for doing it. He seemed like a genuine person, and in a long and convoluted way he at least played a major part in making me a hockey fan(atic). Very thankful for that. RIP.
