Time to give Minnesota its history back

North Stars logo, retired numbers belong in Minnesota - not Dallas

One of the great logos in sports belongs back in Minnesota

Color me green and gold…

Tonight the Dallas Stars go back to their birth state to face the Minnesota Wild, and the Wild will be wearing their Green and Golds, harkening the images of days long gone.

For everyone in Minnesota tonight, especially the older fans, the colors and jerseys are like a warm blanket from the past, but also a cold reminder of a dark chapter for Minnesota sports fans.

For Dallas Stars fans watching the game, the uniforms will probably go largely unnoticed - certainly the deeper story and meaning will be lost on almost every Dallas fan tuned in.

Nobody is in a better position to evaluate this than I am. I worked for the franchise in both states, and I go back to 1967 as a Stars fan in the stands. I worked over 2000 games in the booth over a 25-year-period for the organization, beginning in Minnesota in 1990. I understand the issue from all sides - and I lived it.

And I say without equivocation - It’s time to give the logo, the retired jerseys, and maybe more back to Minnesota to restore the order of things.

The Minnesota North Stars - with those awesome Greens

The “N Star” the “Stars” transitional first Dallas mark, and the “Minnesota Wild” logo.

A brief history lesson -

The NHL granted Minnesota the franchise that began play in (the first expansion) in the 1967-68 season. The North Stars played at Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota from then until the end of the 1992-93 campaign when they relocated to Dallas Texas.

We dropped the “North” and held onto the “Stars”. As an aside, there were never any serious conversations about renaming the team - or changing the moniker to “South Stars”. Thank goodness…

Everyone needs a villain, but to put all of it on Norm Green is wholly inaccurate; when something like this happens, there’s blood on lots of hands. It’s never one thing.

This is not the space to flesh out all of it - but - contributing to the exit - extremely poor management and marketing for the North Stars, horrible drafting (in the 80’s running up to the move - look it up), absentee owners (George and Gordon Gund) extorting the local fan base for 10,000 season ticket sales or they’d move the team, ZERO interest in buying the team from local businesses or private individuals, the league mandated “Dispersal Draft” to raid the Stars farm team and rostered players to stock the Gund’s new expansion team San Jose Sharks pool post sale, rapidly declining ticket sales, the inability to charge premium rates for suites and sponsorships, very little local media attendance, a building in the southern suburbs away from too many, no cooperation from the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission to expand or rebuild the facility, and on and on.

Norm came in from Calgary, had no allegiance to the area, thought he could make a go of it - and eventually wanted out. It’s hard to blame a guy who had no allegiances in Minnesota for taking the team someplace else.

And so after a crazy few months with deals seemingly in place in Anaheim, then Florida, we landed in Dallas. It worked out really well for Dallas and left a huge hole in “The State of Hockey”. The Minnesota Wild and the way they have marketed, performed, and care for the organization and the Minnesota hockey community is the franchise we all should have had and didn’t.

Minnesota fans embraced the “Norm Sucks” narrative - and I get it - but there were lots of things at play.

The Dallas Stars never really have known what to do with the old history

We get to Texas in 1993 - and I’m one of the first people on the ground. The decision to keep the team and individual records and so on was not overly pondered. This is our franchise, and like other relocated franchises, the record books, the logos, everything moves with the team.

I wasn’t involved in any of that - they hired a guy from Dallas as the PR guy and he just rubber stamped carrying over the records and threw em in the media guide and team annals. The retired numbers were just thrown up there because - I don’t know - the rafters were empty when we got to Reunion Arena…

Norm didn’t want any of the old N Star stuff, Tom Hicks who bought the team in 1995 had no attachment to it, and after bankruptcy, Tom Galgliardi bought the team in 2011 and I can tell ya - he’s always been interested in the present and the future, and has no connection to or emotion about the past.

For Tom - I don’t think he cares. And that’s not a criticism - it just is what it is - why would he?

American Airlines Center now displays 6 retired numbers, only 3 have any meaning to the local fan base.

Banner Nights

Ask any Dallas Stars fan who Bill Masterton, Bill Goldsworthy, or even Neal Broten is - and I promise you - 95% or higher have no idea.

Ask any Minnesota hockey fan - and they’ll give you chapter and verse.

What happened here - as I remember it - was the Dallas Stars wanted to create a measure of history, even as a newly relocated franchise. Bill Goldsworthy’s number 8, and Bill Masterton’s number 19, were already on the books as retired numbers, and I was in the mix lobbying to put Neal Broten’s number 7 up there. It would have been a no-brainer in Minnesota, Neal was my favorite player growing up, and I spoke up - it wasn’t really that hard a sale but I’m glad I was in there.

He was the first connector, the cross-over “Star” from Minnesota who made a big mark on hockey, USA hockey, and North Stars hockey. He scored the first goal in Dallas Stars history is really about the only thing that tethers him to Dallas.

Bill Masterton (19) Bill Goldsworthy (8) and Neal Broten (7)

Those numbers should hang at “THE X" - not in “BIG D”

While Neal had a tiny bit of overlap - the Roseau, Minnesota native, who played in the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tourney, who played his college hockey at the University of Minnesota, who played on the 1980 USA olympic hockey team for Minnesotan Herb Brooks, and who played the bulk of his professional career with the North Stars in Minnesota - belongs to Minnesota. Period.

Bill Goldsworthy and Bill Masterton have zero ties to Dallas and the fan base. Zero.

Goldy could snipe - 283 goals - 8 hat tricks - and his patented “Goldy Shuffle” celebration after he scored is a player that despite not playing his entire NHL career in Minnesota but with other NHL clubs of the era, had his number “8” retired IN MINNESOTA - AT MET CENTER, February 15, 1992, 20 months before the franchise relocated to Texas.

Bill Masterton (19), died after a collision on the ice with another player. On January 13, 1968 at Met Center, in Minnesota, the helmetless Masterton’s head hit the ice with tremendous force. He was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead shortly thereafter. The NHL has the “Bill Masterton Trophy” awarded annually to the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to the game.”

But we never did anything with it but hang the jersey. I don’t recall ever running any piece - or making anything but cursory references on the broadcast for all the years I was there about Masterton. I don’t know that even big Dallas fans know the story. The family has been invited to every Dallas Stars jersey retirement - and I sat with them, and the Broten family for Jere Lehtinen’s. Tom Gagliardi’s Stars are very good about things like this.

The numbers the Dallas Stars fans care about are 9 (Mike Modano), 26 (Jere Lehtinen) and 56 (Sergei Zubov). I was at all 3, and in maybe the biggest honor of my career, Zubie invited me to be on the stage with him and 2 others (Bob Gainey and Kevin Lowe) for his ceremony.

LET’S BE REAL HERE -

Dallas has no attachment to these Minnesota numbers. The franchise doesn’t - the fanbase doesn’t. But Minnesota does. I don’t know this - but I would think the Wild would take them back and hang them in a millisecond.

And it would free up - numbers 7, 8 and 19 to be worn again in Dallas.

That’s good for both franchises.

BUT… there’s one we might share - but … mmmm… I don’t know…

Mike Modano was a hot shot young kid in his brief time in Minnesota - but became an unstoppable force with the Dallas Stars.

NUMBER 9, NUMBER 9, NUMBER 9

We don’t have time nor the space here to go through how important Mike Modano is to the hockey world. What he means to Dallas. What he means to Minnesota (he works there…), and what he means to all of us who were watching him every night.

I’m so lucky - rarely does a guy in my job get a guy like him for 20 years. Wild - so to speak.

And while Minnesota likes to claim him - and I understand it - more than the bulk of his career was in Dallas, and he’s a Dallas Star. What he did to build that franchise - how he conducted himself on and off the ice, the HUGE goals and points he scored at critical times, including his assist on Brett Hull’s 1999 Stanley cup winning goal is beyond measure. He was the headliner, the reason people came out in the early years, and I can assure you - the Dallas fan base loves this guy like they love Troy Aikman or Dirk Nowitzky, or Nolan Ryan.

His number belongs in Dallas. No question.

But - I could see - Minnesota doing something there - and I think they have every right to. That would be up to them I think in how they’d like to honor him.

Dallas doesn’t want the old logo or colors - and clearly Minnesota does -

You’ll see them tonight - minus the N Star - those beautiful green and golds. I wasn’t around in Dallas, nor do I know exactly what kind of deal (if there is one) is in place for the Stars, the Wild, the NHL that allows the Wild to wear those colors - and maybe Tom and Dallas get a royalty - and that would be good. At the end of the day - it is the old Stars mark and colors - but c’mon - Dallas doesn’t give a shit - nor should they.

Make the deal - make it right - give Minnesota their colors and mark back. There’s no reason not to anymore.

Final thoughts

The record books are different, and I think there’s more reason’s for Dallas to hold on to those - to keep the franchise’s statistical integrity and continuity. There’s no reason to muddy the Wild’s books with players who didn’t play for them.

But now - over 30 years after we left - and with a lot of the vitriol and some of the bad feeling gone, or at least substantially muted, it’s the right thing for both franchises.

I know - Dallas doesn’t really care - nor should they.

I know - Minnesota does - and rightfully so.

This is a no-brainer deal that would satisfy both organizations and fan bases, so let’s get the damned thing done.