Wild Pitch

People along the Iron Range, the vast rolling hills in northern Minnesota where iron ore is hauled from the ground, are ready for the NHL. They hear the call of the Minnesota Wild.

Every mining community up there claims to be Hockeytown, saying that pothole-laced city in Michigan made off with the moniker. Names such as John Mariucci and John Mayasich are legends. Old-time hockey? You betcha.

Roseau. Warroad. Eveleth. Tiny towns with storied hockey histories. Down south, the University of Minnesota has long been a collegiate powerhouse. There are youth leagues and beer leagues throughout the state. In Eveleth, a town of 4,000, there is the Eveleth Hockey Mother’s Assn.

But the state has been without professional hockey since 1993, when the Minnesota North Stars packed up for Dallas. The Wild, one of two NHL expansion teams beginning this season, has arrived to fill the void.

“Has it been seven years?” said Crystal Korpi, president of the Eveleth Hockey Mothers’ Assn., a support group for the local youth teams. “It feels like it has been forever. We were North Stars fans, my husband and me. The North Stars were a big deal up here, you know. When they left, we became Detroit Red Wings fans. We had to follow somebody.

“It’s good the NHL came back to Minnesota. But we bought a Wild hat and we’re going to get a jersey. Everyone is pretty excited up here in Eveleth. This is Hockeytown, you know.”

If they are in a tizzy over the Wild in Eveleth, which is also home of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and the world’s largest hockey stick (107 feet tall), then the entire state must be getting worked up.

The Wild, which opens its first season tonight against the Mighty Ducks in the Arrowhead Pond, has already sold 15,400 season tickets for its brand-new arena, the 18,064-seat Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. The remaining seats for the team’s home opener sold out in two minutes.

More than 25,000 Wild jerseys have been sold since May, which is tops among NHL teams.

“Now the fans probably won’t take it for granted,” said Duck center Matt Cullen, who grew up in Virginia, near Eveleth. “I mean, all of a sudden the NHL was gone.”

Few expected the NHL to return to Minnesota. Political battles over a new arena led North Star owner Norm Green to take his team away.

The history of hockey in the United States may have evolved from Minnesota. The state’s high school hockey tournament is a week of mayhem in the Twin Cities, and the North Stars had a colorful and, at times, successful history. Any real fan can remember the “Goldie Shuffle,” the dance Bill Goldsworthy performed after each goal he scored.

But NHL officials, once burned, were more than twice skeptical.

“There was out-and-out hostility from the NHL at first because they had been treated somewhat shabbily by one of the local arenas,” Wild Chairman Bob Naegele said. “I think the fan base has always been there. The fans didn’t leave the North Stars; the North Stars left them. It was a very bitter divorce, but that doesn’t mean you dislike marriage.”

Naegele, a local businessman and former college goalie, and a group of investors decided to take the plunge, putting up the $80-million expansion fee. St. Paul civic leaders, eager to have their first professional franchise, ponied up $95 million for the $130-million arena.

The Xcel Energy Center, which includes a three-story, eight-sided scoreboard, has 74 suites and features posh amenities. So excited were team officials about the arena that they invited the media to attend last month’s “super flush,” when all the toilets were tested simultaneously.

League officials required the team to sell 12,000 season tickets by April 15, 2000. The Wild sold 14,400 by that date, including four to Hall of Famer Gordie Howe.

Not that some fans don’t have a few concerns.

“I’m not as excited about hockey coming back as I thought I would be,” longtime North Star fan Scott Guttormson said. “The arena seems more like a corporate setting. It is not as blue collar as the Met Center. That was a working man’s crowd. You have a beer and watch the game.”

Said Naegele: “That’s not our fan. The new hockey fan is upscale and affluent.”

But isn’t this the state that elected a pro wrestler as its governor?

Passion Play

Hockey, blue-collar hockey, remains a way of life in Minnesota, much like basketball in Indiana and football in Texas. And that’s even more true in the northern part of the state, where the winters are especially long.

“What else you going to do up there?” said Lou Nanne, a former North Star player and later the team’s general manager and president. “You can build a fire or you can play hockey.”

The game thrives in Eveleth. The town produced two NHL goalies, Sam LoPresti and Michael Karakas, before World War II, when the league had only six teams.

It was Eveleth native Mark Pavelich who, in 1980, slipped the puck to Mike Eruzione for the game-winning goal against the Soviet Union in the Lake Placid Olympics. Of the 20 players on that team, 12 were from Minnesota. Of the 17 players on the 1960 Olympic team, eight were from Minnesota, including Eveleth’s Mayasich, who helped push the team to the gold medal, then turned down the NHL.

“Hockey in Minnesota dates back to about the time the Stanley Cup came into being,” said Al Shaver, the North Stars’ broadcaster for 26 years. “Towns up on the Iron Range are hotbeds for hockey.”

Mariucci came out of the mines near Eveleth. He played football and hockey at the University of Minnesota and in the NHL before returning to coach the Golden Gophers. The college’s hockey arena is named after him.

As a youth growing up in Hibbing in northern Minnesota, Kevin McHale developed a passion for hockey. It remained long after he grew too tall to skate effectively and had to settle for a basketball career with the Boston Celtics.

“When we came to Boston,” Nanne said, “Kevin would also show up and root for the North Stars.”

Warroad, home of the Christian Bros. Hockey Stick Factory, calls itself Hockeytown. Detroit later absconded with the nickname, according to locals.

“We were the original one,” said Roger Christian, who co-founded the stick factory 37 years ago. “But we’ve had no trouble from Detroit. Hockey is a big part of life in this town. You have summer and winter here. In October, winter begins and so does hockey season.”

Roseau, with a population of 2,396, has won six state high school titles and produced Neal Broten, the first U.S.-born player to score 100 points in the NHL.

“March is unbelievable in Minnesota with high school and college hockey heating up,” Cullen said. “It’s hard to find basketball March madness here.”

The First Time

The North Stars, one of six NHL expansion teams in 1967, tapped that passion.

The team was colorful. When Goldsworthy scored, he would skate in circles on one skate with his arm in the air. The North Stars were also successful immediately, reaching the Western Conference final their first season.

Of course, five of the seven games in the final had to be played at St. Louis because the Ice Capades was booked into the Met Center.

“I remember we came home after losing the seventh game in overtime and Braniff Airlines had to take the plane to a special area because thousands of fans came out to greet us,” Shaver said. “St. Louis immediately became our rival. Chicago replaced them years later.”

Shaver said that before one game against the Blackhawks, North Star Basil McRae started a brawl when he decked a Blackhawk player during warmups. McRae, who had 2,457 penalty minutes in 16 seasons, later claimed he was only doing a little “border patrol” after Chicago players had skated on the North Stars’ side of the ice.

“I still vividly remember those Chicago games,” said former North Star Tom Reid, now a Wild broadcaster. “I remember times when the security guards would take their shoes off and start beating people.”

The North Stars reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1981 and 1991, but had trouble selling tickets in less successful years.

Still, many feel it wasn’t the fans who drove away the North Stars.

“The fans supported the team,” longtime fan Guttormson said. “I mean, we got the number of the phone by the [arena] organist and we’d call to get the scores when we weren’t there. The Met roared. It would get so loud, the hair would stand up on the back of your neck.”

Green, who bought the team in 1990, was the villain, according to most fans. Others say an inflexible Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission cast him in that role.

Either way, Green took the heat. He nearly moved the team to Anaheim in 1992. Instead, after several attempts at a resolution, he took the team to Dallas and later sold it.

“There were a lot of reasons--not very good reasons--why the North Stars aren’t there any more,” said Duck Coach Craig Hartsburg, who played 10 seasons for the team. “But I’m sure it is all behind them now. I’m sure they are all looking forward to the new team.”

They are in the Twin Cities . . . and in Eveleth . . . and in Warroad . . . and in Roseau.

“The NHL belongs in Minnesota,” Wild chairman Naegele said. “The game has roots here below the frost line.”

*

From Understudy to Leading Role:

Rookie Eric Belanger will be centering Kings’ top line when curtain goes up tonight. D4

Ducks’ Hebert Looking Ahead

Team’s mainstay confident he can put inconsistency of last season behind him. D6

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NHL Franchise History

The Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs are the original six teams:

* 1967--California Seals; Los Angeles Kings; Minnesota North Stars; Philadelphia Flyers; Pittsburgh Penguins; St. Louis Blues

* 1970--Buffalo Sabres; Vancouver Canucks

* 1972--Atlanta Flames; New York Islanders

* 1974--Kansas City Scouts; Washington Capitals

* 1976--California Golden Seals become the Cleveland Barons; Kansas City Scouts become the Colorado Rockies

* 1978--Cleveland Barons merge with Minnesota North Stars

* 1979--Edmonton Oilers; Hartford Whalers; Quebec Nordiques; Winnipeg Jets (teams absorbed from folded WHA)

* 1980--Atlanta Flames move to Calgary

* 1982--Colorado Rockies become the New Jersey Devils

* 1991--San Jose Sharks

* 1992--Ottawa Senators; Tampa Bay Lightning

* 1993--Florida Panthers; Mighty Ducks of Anaheim; Minnesota North Stars become the Dallas Stars

* 1995--Quebec Nordiques become the Colorado Avalanche

* 1996--Winnipeg Jets become the Phoenix Coyotes

* 1997--Hartford Whalers become the Carolina Hurricanes

* 1998--Nashville Predators

* 1999--Atlanta Thrashers

* 2000--Columbus Blue Jackets; Minnesota Wild

--Researched by ROY JURGENS