Most importantly, it was the voices that came out of those small radios, sometimes crystal clear, sometimes filled with static, that served as the soundtrack to a team. The passing of Al Shaver at the age of 96 this week served as a reminder of just how lucky I was to come of age listening to Shaver describe my favorite team, the Minnesota North Stars.

The tributes to Shaver that were published Wednesday after his family announced his passing will refer to him as the voice of the North Stars. That’s selling Al short. Shaver wasn’t just the voice of the North Stars, he was the North Stars.

The franchise had plenty of star power in its 26 seasons in Minnesota, and a few household names, but no one was identified with the North Stars like Shaver. The North Stars and owner Norm Green left for Dallas after the 1992-93 season — Shaver declined to make the move — so there might be some who wonder if the following statement is a bit of hyperbole, written after someone’s passing?

But it was Shaver who was in charge of describing those magical springtime runs. His voice booming from the press box at Met Center provided comfort on a cold night, and there was nothing better than sneaking that transistor radio under your pillow on a weeknight for a West Coast game that was played while your parents thought you were asleep.

Al Shaver was the best at describing hockey fights, Zulgad writes. (Photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

The years I was most passionate about the North Stars, Shaver would work the home games with an analyst but would go solo on the road. Shaver was a pro’s pro. He knew when to let the broadcast breathe and his description of each play was like listening to an artist paint a verbal picture.

But it was more than that.

Shaver might be the all-time best at describing a fight. This was in a day where hockey fights were common and Shaver didn’t take any shortcuts when it came to describing the exchange of punches. A boxing announcer couldn’t have done it better. “There go Plett and Secord,” Shaver would tell us from the Chicago Stadium before describing exactly when Al Secord or Willi Plett got in another jab. Bench clearing brawls were Shaver at his best as he visually sifted through the action on the ice to focus on the best bouts.

It always was clear that Shaver was the North Stars voice and that he wanted the team to win. But unlike so many announcers today that didn’t make North Stars players immune from his criticism. If the team wasn’t playing well, Shaver had no problem telling you that and his disgust reflected his passion for the team far more than the excuses spewed today.

Al’s description of the action not only kept you abreast of what was going on, but it also resulted in so many of us doing play-by-play of the street hockey games we would play in the driveway on weekend nights. A big save by the goalie would result in the Shaver-esque: “boh-PRAY with the glove save!”

That would be North Stars goalie Donnie Beaupre, who had the perfect name for Shaver to elongate. Shaver also worked three seasons of Gophers hockey after he left the North Stars and occasionally worked the State High School hockey tournament. Any game Shaver did took on more importance simply because he was calling it. 

Meeting the legend
I had probably been listening to Shaver for five years, when I finally got to meet him. My mother, Edna, who supported my passion for sports every step of the way, wrote Shaver a letter explaining how much her hockey-crazed son admired him and wanted to get into the business.

Al invited me to sit in the AM-1500 booth with him for an afternoon game and beforehand took me to the press room to eat with him. I must have been around 14 at the time and the thrill of being with a legend I had only heard through the radio, or looked up at while sitting in Met Center, sticks with me to this day.

It was probably six years later when I joined the North Stars as a public relations intern. At some point shortly after coming aboard, Al asked if I could drop him off at the airport to catch a flight to a road game. Met Center was only a few minutes from the airport but you talk about a surreal experience. A 19-year-old kid with Al Shaver in the passenger seat of the Dodge his parents let him use.

Suddenly the voice I had listened to so many nights on my transistor radio was having a conversation with me. And anyone who had a conversation with Shaver quickly realized he had no ego and didn’t think of himself as being above anyone. You could be an intern or a top executive with the North Stars and Shaver would treat your with the same respect.

Al retired to Vancouver Island after leaving the Gophers job, meaning it had been nearly 30 years since he last called a game. Yet, I can still hear his voice describing a goal by Dino, a huge save by Beaupre or a Brad Maxwell fight. That’s the type of impact Shaver left on so many. And while his voice might have been silenced this week, it will live on with those of us who grew up listening to him on our transistor radios.

The post Zulgad: Al Shaver ‘Was The North Stars’ appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

But the North Stars were there in 1990-91. It’s a season and a story that Minnesota sports writer and author Kevin Allenspach thinks is worth documenting. So, he wrote his newly released book “Mirage of Destiny: The Story of the 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars.” The book includes very detailed accounts of the North Stars and their, as Allenspach called it, “miracle, Cinderella run” to the Stanley Cup Final in the spring of 1991.

Throughout most of that hockey season, the North Stars were among the worst teams in the league, and attendance was abysmal, too. But things turned around in February and March when the North Stars started winning some games.

Allenspach dives deep into the journey of the team with the worst regular-season record in any of the four major North American sports leagues that advanced to play for a modern championship, even though Minnesota lost the series in six games to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Kevin Allenspach tells the stories of the exhilaratioin, heartbreak and real lives of many 1990-91 North Stars players in his book “Mirage of Destiny.” (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“That team is unique in all of pro sports history,” Allenspach said. “If you look to modern sports, there’s never been a team that had that bad of a regular season, yet got to a championship, to play for a championship.”

Of the big-four men’s professional sports leagues, only the 1938 Chicago Blackhawks had a worse regular season but still wound up winning the Stanley Cup, Allenspach said. Of course, at that time they only needed seven games, not 16 victories, to accomplish the feat.

It would be like an NFL team going 7-9 in today’s regular season and then winning a Super Bowl, or like the three NBA teams in history that reached the NBA Finals with a losing record, Allenspach cited as examples.

“That, to me, is why this team is unlike any other,” Allenspach said, of those 1990-91 North Stars. “And it’ll never happen again. In the modern NHL, you’ll never have a team with a losing record probably make the playoffs, let alone go all the way to the finals.

“It’s unique in history.”

Up-close look at the 1990-91 team
Allenspach was a college student and PR intern for the North Stars during the 1990-91 season, which was also the first year the team was under Norm Green’s ownership. Minnesota was up two games to one in the finals, “and the thing goes poof,” as Allenspach put it. Even then, Allenspach thought to himself that someone needed to tell the Cinderella story of that North Stars team, even more so when Green moved the franchise to Dallas a couple of years later.

Working as a sportswriter for the St. Cloud Times for many years, Allenspach never really had an opportunity to sit down and write this tale. Then the pandemic hit in 2020 and, like many people, he was at home with not as much to do. So, he decided to write the book to “have something to show for my time during the pandemic.”

Allenspach relied on his own research, knowledge and pack-rat habit – “I kept game programs and game notes and anything that wasn’t locked down that didn’t belong to the team” – from his time with the team to help write the book. He also looked at a lot of microfilm during his time, and afterward, while working at the Pioneer Press.

All about the players and their stories
His goal was also to reach all of the North Stars players from that team, as well as coaches, anybody he worked with in the front office and media members; he also relied on the beat writers from that season Gary Olson (Pioneer Press) and Rachel Blount (Star Tribune) for help with the diary portion of the book in the first half. He touched base with more than 40 sources on his list of 60 names, starting with Hall of Fame player Mike Modano. There are only three players who played in the Stanley Cup Final that he wasn’t able to interview for the book.

As important as it was for Allenspach to tell the story of the 1990-91 North Stars season, the stories of what’s happened to many of those players in the decades since then were really what intrigued him as well. Those valuable stories are found in the later parts of the book. Unlike today’s NHL landscape where players can be set for life financially, the North Stars players of the early 1990s often went into second careers.

“So, when I would talk to them, I was always surprised at how many of them said, ‘Jeez, thanks for dredging up these memories,’” Allenspach said. “That’s probably the part of the book that I’m most proud of.”

Some of the players, like Modano, went on to win a Stanley Cup after that 1990-91 season. But most of the others never got another chance to play for one. Stew Gavin, for instance, told Allenspach that he still thinks about what could have been with the 1990-91 team.

“Yet, at the same time, you’ve got to move on a little bit, too, and you’ve got to be able to put it behind you and sort of stand on whatever your reality was,” Allenspach said. “I guess that’s kind of my takeaway. You have to appreciate that you were even there.”

Allenspach’s book is published through North Star Press in St. Cloud. The 366-page book includes a forward written by Modano and afterword by Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse. The book is $35 and can be found wherever books are sold. There’s a launch party for the book at Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub tonight, Feb. 20, and Allenspach will also have a booth at the Let’s Play Hockey Expo during the boys’ state high school hockey tournament in March.

The post ‘Mirage of Destiny’ appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

A pair of Norm Green “fans” walking the Met Center concourse. (Courtesy Vintage MN Hockey)

Friday will mark 30 years since North Stars owner Norm Green made it official that he would be relocating the franchise to Dallas. Broten, 33 at the time, was forced to leave the only hockey home he had known. One of the greatest American born players, Broten had played youth hockey in Roseau, became a star at the University of Minnesota, was on the 1980 U.S. Olympic team and then played 12-plus seasons for the North Stars.

Broten, fresh from helping the U.S. stun the Russians in Lake Placid, joined the North Stars in time to play a role in the team’s run to the 1981 Stanley Cup Finals and had nine goals and 22 points in 23 postseason games as the North Stars returned to the Finals in 1991 against Pittsburgh.

Two years later, the franchise was headed to Dallas. The Stars have been in Dallas (29 years) longer than they were in Minnesota (26 years). After losing in the Finals in each of their appearances when Broten was on the team, the Stars won the only Stanley Cup of their 55-year existence in 1999.

The void left by the move was filled in 2000 when the expansion Wild began play and many Minnesota hockey fans have only known that franchise. There is an IKEA store and parking lot where the Met Center once stood in Bloomington. Still, the North Stars departure remains one of the more remarkable relocation stories in professional sports. Minnesota — dubbed The State of Hockey by the Wild’s genius marketing department — lost its NHL team to a state known for its love of football.

(MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

The North Stars have not been forgotten. They are well represented most nights at the Wild’s home, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Jerseys and apparel from the team remain popular and the Wild have paid tribute to the North Stars color scheme with their Reverse Retro jerseys in recent years. Bitterness about the move, at least from those who remember the team, has been replaced by the many pleasant memories that were established long before owner Norm Green started to hear his name used in derogatory chants in the late winter and spring of ’93.

Broten, now 63, recalled that tumultuous time this week as the anniversary of the North Stars announced departure neared. The biggest takeaway from the conversation was how surprised Broten remains about what happened.

“There was a lot of noise when Norm Green took over that he was going to move the team,” said Broten, who still holds the franchise marks he set in 1981-82 for most goals (38), assists (60) and points by a rookie (98). “I think a lot of us just thought that it was kind of talk, but when word came down that it was official that the North Stars were moving the team to Dallas, it was crazy, it was bizarre. It was like, ‘Hockey in Dallas, leaving Minnesota?’

“Does that sound legit or stupid or what? But it became real when the moving vans came and picked up our furniture and we headed down 35 towards Dallas. I look back on it, 30 years went by pretty fast. But it was just spending 10, 11, 12 years in Minnesota, or whatever the heck it was, and then just uprooting the team and moving it out of what they now call ‘The State of Hockey’ … Minnesota has always been hockey for me. So moving out to Dallas didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense at that time. It was bizarre. Basically it was crazy.”

Norm Green peddling Met Center suites. (Courtesy Vintage MN Hockey)

There were many contributing factors in the decision. Green was sued for sexual harassment by a former North Stars employee that eventually was settled out of court. There also were issues involving attendance at Met Center (yes, that was a thing) and Green’s inability to work out a deal with the owners of the then-new Target Center to move the team downtown.

Green, a shopping mall developer from Calgary who bought the franchise in 1990, wanted major improvements at the Met Center and he wasn’t going to get them. The key thing was that Green was given NHL approval to move the franchise anywhere he wanted in 1992 as part of an agreement that he would not relocate the North Stars to a new arena in Anaheim, Calif. The reason being that the NHL wanted Disney to be able to put the expansion Mighty Ducks in that building.

In a piece he wrote for a Dallas magazine in 2010, Green said he had the deal done to move the Stars in January 1993. A year after losing to the Penguins in the NHL Finals, and Green hearing chants of “Norm, Norm, Norm,” as he walked the Met Center concourse, the North Stars lost in the opening round of the 1992 playoffs to Detroit in seven games. The North Stars appeared to be headed back to the playoffs the following season and had a 26-18-8 record by end of January 1993.

Young superstar Mike Modano was on his way to a 33-goal, 93-point season and the North Stars appeared to have a franchise player for years to come. That turned out to be the case, only it was Dallas who got to witness Modano’s development into a Hall of Fame player. A day before it became official that the North Stars would be leaving Minnesota, they beat the San Jose Sharks at Met Center to improve to 32-27-9. Minnesota played host to Vancouver the day after the news and beat the Canucks by a goal.

Moments before the final opening puck drop at Met Center (Courtesy Vintage MN Hockey)

But the North Stars’ season quickly came off the rails after that win. They lost eight of their next nine, mixing in a tie, before winning three in a row.

“It definitely caused some turmoil amongst the whole team,” said Broten, who had 12 goals and 33 points in 82 games that season. “You’ve got stuff in the paper and people are talking every day about, ‘OK, he’s going to move the team.’ It wasn’t a great situation for sure.”

It got worse as the North Stars ended its season with three consecutive losses to miss the playoffs. The penultimate game was the last one at Met Center, a 3-2 loss to Chicago, and the final game was a 5-3 loss on April 15, 1993 in Detroit. Ulf Dahlen scored the final goal for the North Stars.

If that evening felt strange, it was nothing compared to the atmosphere at Met Center as Minnesota’s two-goal rally in the third period fell short against the biggest rival in franchise history, the Blackhawks.

“That was pretty weird,” Broten said. “After the game we kind of saluted the crowd. A bunch of guys went back on the ice and raised their sticks or whatever. That’s about all I can remember from that. It was just a crazy time. I don’t know what to tell you. You kind of believed it and you kind of didn’t believe it. I had totally mixed emotions. I had never thought the team would move, or never thought they’d move to Dallas, or any other city, right? That last game at home was pretty emotional.”

Courtesy Vintage MN Hockey

Broten, a center, had a productive first season in Dallas, scoring 17 goals with 52 points in 79 games. He had only four assists in 17 games and was minus-8 the following season before he was traded to the New Jersey Devils for Cloquet native and fellow former Gopher Corey Millen.

That Devils team would go onto win the Stanley Cup — Broten had seven goals and 19 points in 20 postseason games — and Broten remained in New Jersey before being sent to the Los Angeles Kings during the 1996-97 season. Broten played in only 19 games for the Kings and was then claimed off waivers by the Stars. He retired after contributing eight goals and 15 points in 20 games with Dallas.

The North Stars had retired two numbers during their existence — Bill Masterton’s 19 and Bill Goldsworthy’s 8 — and Broten’s 7 became the first to be raised to the rafters with the franchise based in Dallas. Broten, however, would have much preferred that that 1998 ceremony could have occurred before a North Stars game in his home state.

Courtesy Vintage MN Hockey

“I’m a North Star through and through,” he said. “They drafted me, they gave me a shot to play in the NHL. I got a chance to play there for almost my entire career. Dallas was just a little diversion from the career. … But my whole time in Minnesota was great. Youth hockey was great, college hockey was awesome, the Olympic team (which was based in the Twin Cities) was great, the North Stars were awesome and to just kind of pull the rug out from underneath you and move to Dallas. Man, I wish I could have won a Cup (in Minnesota) but it didn’t work out.”

The final Minnesota North Stars team photo (Courtesy Vintage MN Hockey)

The post A North Star Through and Through appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Mikko Koivu, seen here in a Sept. 29, 2019 preseason game vs the Winnipeg Jets, will have his No. 9 retired in a pregame ceremony ahead of the Wild’s March 13 game against the Nashville Predators. (MH Photo / Rick Olson)

That franchise, the North Stars, retired two numbers in the 26 seasons they were based in Minnesota. The first was Bill Masterton’s No. 19. The number was issued only once again (briefly to Chuck Arnason in 1978, according to Hockey Reference) after Masterton suffered what proved to be a fatal head injury during the North Stars’ first season in 1967-68. The official jersey retirement didn’t happen until 19 years later.

The other player had to wait 15-plus years before being honored. That’s quite a difference from Koivu, whose last game with the Wild was played in August 2020 in the NHL’s play-in tournament in the Edmonton bubble. Koivu was a solid defensive center during his 15 seasons with the Wild but he was never considered flashy.

That wasn’t the case with right winger Bill Goldsworthy, whose No. 8 was put in the Met Center rafters on Feb. 15, 1992, after seven other players had worn it. That makes Goldsworthy the last player for a Minnesota NHL team to be considered worthy of one of the ultimate honors in sports.

“I remember how emotional he got,” when he found out they were going to retire his number, said Bill’s son, Sean, who is now the coach of the Minnetonka boys’ High School hockey team. “From that old era of tough love and being stoic. I’d very seldom seen him in tears, but I do remember that when told me, ‘There’s nothing that can make me more proud to be a part of this than to feel I was that important to the franchise.”

Indeed, he was.

Cover of the game program for Goldsworthy’s number retirement ceremony. (Photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

Goldsworthy was the first star player in North Stars’ history, both because of his ability to score goals and how he celebrated them. Goldsworthy had only six goals over three seasons in 33 games with the Boston Bruins before he was taken by the expansion North Stars as the NHL went from six to 12 teams in 1967. He had 14 goals in each of his first two seasons in Minnesota, but then took off in his third year. He had 36 goals in 75 games in 1969-70 and followed that with goal totals of 34, 31,27 48, 37 and 24.

Goldsworthy combined his goal-scoring ability with a celebration in which he would raise his left leg and pump his right arm. “I don’t know when it started exactly,” said Lou Nanne, who was a teammate of Goldsworthy’s for nine-plus seasons in Minnesota. “He really started doing it in the second year. Then people began talking about it.”

The “Goldy Shuffle” was unique because signature hockey celebrations were not the norm in the late 1960s. If the Met Center crowd was at first confused about the shuffle, they soon began to expect it. “He was a really charismatic hockey player, Nanne said. “He’s the kind of player that you liked to have on your team because you knew he was going to sell tickets for you.”

Tom Reid, who also played with Goldsworthy on the North Stars, remembers him for his ability to score goals and also for his quick temper. The stats support both things. Goldsworthy had 267 goals in 670 games with the North Stars and accumulated 711 penalty minutes, including 110, in 1968-69. Goldsworthy still ranks sixth in all-time goals in the Minnesota/Dallas franchise record book.

“He had an eye for the back of the net,” said Reid, now the Wild radio analyst. “Bill had a terrific wrist shot and a quick release. But he was one of those guys who could snap in a hurry if something were to happen.”

Such as?

The banners of Bill Goldworthy and Bill Masterton hanging high over the Met Center ice. (Photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

“One game Bill came off the ice,” Nanne recalled, “I was right there. There was a half minute to go in the period and (coach Wren) Blair was going through his usual antics of yelling at Goldy. Goldy didn’t break stride, coming toward the bench, and going full speed he drilled Wren with a right. He dropped him with his glove on. We all piled on (to break it up). We go up in the locker room after the period and Wren says to Bill, ‘Come in my office and we’ll finish this.’ As as soon Bill entered, Wren said, ‘Sit down.’ He knew Goldy would have killed him.”

Because this was hockey in the late 1960s, Goldsworthy was not only not suspended for punching his coach and general manager, but he ended up starting the next period after initially thinking Blair had benched him. “Wren had told Goldy to sit on the bench,” to begin the period, “so Goldy didn’t come out on the ice,” Nanne said. “The referee said, “Wren, get somebody out here.’ Goldy came out and the crowd started cheering.”

Goldsworthy, who added 18 goals and 37 points in 40 playoff games with the North Stars, was traded to the New York Rangers in November 1976 after appearing in 16 games that season. He played two seasons in New York before finishing his career in the World Hockey Association with Indianapolis and then Edmonton in 1978-79.

Goldsworthy would later work for the North Stars before joining the San Jose Sharks as a scout. He also had some minor league coaching jobs. But Goldsworthy’s proudest moment in hockey likely came the night his jersey was retired.

“That whole weekend I remember watching him emotionally manage things and breaking down multiple times behind the scenes,” said Sean Goldsworthy, who was in his 20s at the time. “He needed moments to digest the intensity of the emotions. Getting the franchise from expansion and into legitimacy. Getting out of the Original Six (with Boston) and getting respect in the league. Those years were critical for Minnesota and the NHL. … To see those players re-engage in their relationships and brotherhood (was special).”

Bill Goldworthy, holding his banner, acknowledges the cheers of North Stars fans at his Feb. 15, 1992 number retirement ceremony at Met Center. (Photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

Sadly, Goldsworthy passed away in 1996 at the age of 51 after battling AIDS. Goldsworthy, who had battled alcoholism at different points in his life, discussed the situation with the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1995. “There was a period of three to five years after my divorce when I was really into the bottle and I wasn’t careful about my sexual relationships,” he told the paper. “And there were a few times when I was a scout for San Jose, after I started to drink again, that I wasn’t as careful about sex as I should have been.”

Goldsworthy’s friends and the hockey community rallied around him. Reid recalled a fundraiser for Goldsworthy that was held in the Twin Cities and included “everybody who was anybody in hockey in this area.”

Goldsworthy wasn’t the last former North Stars great to have his jersey retired. Neal Broten’s No. 7 was retired by the Dallas Stars in February 1998 and Mike Modano’s No. 9 in March 2014. Modano, of course, only played a few seasons in Minnesota before becoming a dominant player in Dallas.

In a classy gesture the Stars franchise paid for members of the Goldsworthy  and Masterton families to be in Dallas for Modano’s jersey retirement. It was there that Sean had a meaningful conversation with Broten, who had grown up in Roseau, Minn., watching Bill play for the North Stars.

(Photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

“Neal told me how much he thought of my dad and I reciprocated that to Neal,” Sean said. “I told him that, ‘My dad taught me the game of hockey by watching you.’ To watch Neal emotionally accept that gratitude was really cool.”

As for what playing with the North Stars meant to Bill Goldsworthy, Sean has no trouble recalling his father’s words.

“I remember him saying, ‘There’s nothing more special than playing in Minnesota,'” Sean said. “It was so dear to his heart and nothing meant more to him professionally than to have his jersey retired by the Minnesota North Stars. Thinking back to J.P. Parise, Tom Reid and Lou Nanne, who became surrogate fathers to me when my dad passed. They had a brotherhood that was unmatched, even in today’s game. They raised their families together and played together for a decade. To be recognized by the franchise he put his heart into and loved, he finally felt at peace.”

The post A Worthy Honor appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

“The Blues were our first real rival,” former North Stars defenseman Tom Reid said.

Reid will be in the home radio booth on Saturday at Target Field to serve as analyst for the Wild-Blues game in the Minnesota Wild’s first-ever appearance in the Winter Classic. While there isn’t much animosity between the Wild and Blues, this matchup is a nod to the history that dates to Minnesota’s first NHL entrant.

Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek and Jared Spurgeon tangle with Blues forwards Vladimir Tarasenko (91) and Ryan O’Reilly (90) in a Feb. 24, 2019 game at Xcel Energy Center won 2-1 by the Wild in on Ryan Donato’s overtime winner. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

The Wild already faced the Blackhawks in an outdoor game in February 2016 that was part of the Stadium Series at TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus. The NHL considered a few potential opponents for the Wild before deciding on the 2019 Stanley Cup champion Blues.

“I thought it was a no-brainer,” to pick the Blues for this game, former North Stars defenseman and general manager Lou Nanne said. “You have to remember, (the Wild) did play Chicago in an outdoor game and Chicago has played so many outdoor games. That nullified them. St. Louis hasn’t had as many, and the Blues have been our natural rival for so long. It’s building up now (with the Wild), and older fans still remember that rivalry with the North Stars.”

The Wild and Blues have been in the Central Division together every season but one since 2013, when the NHL realigned divisions. The exception came last season when Minnesota and St. Louis were both in the West Division as part of a one season shift caused by the pandemic. The Wild and Blues have met twice in the playoffs. The Wild won in six games in the first round in 2015 before being swept by the Blackhawks, and St. Louis knocked out the Wild in five games in the opening round in 2017.

While the Blues were well established by the time the Wild entered the NHL in 2000, St. Louis and the North Stars both came into the league in 1967 as part of the six-team expansion that doubled the number of teams in the league to 12. Both were in the West Division, which housed all the new clubs and provided a clear path to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first few years.

Long before Minnesota Wild forward Marcus ‘Moose’ Foligno arrived at Xcel Energy Center, Elmer ‘Moose’ Vasko played for the inaugural Minnesota North Stars. Vasko (No. 4) is shown here introducing St. Louis Blues RW Jimmy Roberts to his elbow in Minnesota’s second ever home game at Met Center, won 3-2 by the North Stars. The late Bill Masterton (19) and Minnesota goaltender Gary Bauman (1) are also shown. (Photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

The Blues-North Stars rivalry was immediate as the teams met in the playoffs four of their first five seasons. Minnesota, which played to a 2-2 tie against the host Blues in its first-ever game on Oct. 11, 1967, lost to St. Louis in seven games in the 1968 semifinals (second round) after eliminating the Kings in the first round. Four of the games went into overtime, including the deciding one. Ron Schock’s goal 2:50 into the second overtime at St. Louis Arena gave the Blues a 2-1 victory.

After the North Stars missed the playoffs in their second season, they lost to the Blues in six games in the first round in 1970; beat the Blues in six games the following spring before losing to Montreal; and then lost to the Blues in seven in the opening round in 1972. That series featured five one-goal games and another 2-1 overtime loss in Game 7 at Met Center.

It was the last one that Nanne best remembers. Kevin O’Shea’s 35-foot shot beat North Stars goalie Cesar Maniago at 10 minutes, 7 seconds of OT.

“That’s the one that stands out because we were a better team than them that year,” Nanne said. “We had more points (86 to 67) and they just grinded it out. … I’ll never forget it because the arena just went quiet and then it was over.

The Blues’ earlier playoff success enabled them to reach the Stanley Cup Finals in 1968, ’69 and ’70. They were swept by Montreal twice and Boston the final time. Reid was traded to the North Stars from the Blackhawks in February 1969, so he was around for three of the four series. He recalls how differently the rosters of the two teams were constructed.

“When expansion came about, the Blues went after more (veteran) players because they wanted to be in the playoffs right away,” Reid said. “They had guys like Glenn Hall (who was 36) and Al Arbour (who was 35) and all of these older guys, where Minnesota had a much younger team. It was not a situation where it was even on experience, but there was a great rivalry over the years.”

What’s interesting is that while North Stars fans hated the Blackhawks, and vice versa, they also saw plenty of the Blues in the playoffs during the ’80s and into the ’90s. All three were in the Norris Division in a time where the playoff matchups remained within the division until the conference finals. While Minnesota and Chicago met six times from 1981 through 1991, the Blues and North Stars met five times. The North Stars were 2-4 in the series against the Hawks and 3-2 against St. Louis. The North Stars ousted both teams during their surprising run to the 1991 Stanley Cup Finals.

“I think it was,” a really good rivalry, said former North Stars defenseman Brad Maxwell, who played for Minnesota from 1977 until December 1984 and then for 17 games in the 1986-87 season. “St. Louis had so many good players, and had a lot of players who had been in the Western Hockey League. I played against those guys in juniors. The games were intense. We didn’t have really big brawls  or one guy you hated like Secord. But it was really good hockey. Intense and physical.”

While the Minnesota/St. Louis hockey rivalry may not be remembered for the vitriol of others, there have been moments like this exchange between Blues forward, and Minnesota native, David Backes and the Wild’s Charlie Coyle in am April 20, 2015 playoff clash at Xcel Energy Center, won 3-0 by Minnesota. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

One of the most intense games came in Game 7 of the Norris Division Finals in 1984 at Met Center. This time the North Stars came out on top. Mark Reeds silenced the crowd when he scored with 5:54 left in the third period to give St. Louis the lead, but Willi Plett tied it 15 seconds later with a 75-foot blast that beat goalie Mike Liut and the North Stars won when Steve Payne scored six minutes into overtime.

“That was huge,” said Nanne, who was North Stars GM by that time. “It was a tough series and tough rivalry. We had come off of some pretty good years. … It took a long time to get that win back (against St. Louis). It seemed like the Chicago rivalry was taking over, but when we played St. Louis it was like old times getting back at one another.”

Maxwell said he would have embraced the opportunity to play in an outdoor game with the North Stars. Maxwell and many of his former teammates, along with some alumni from the Wild, faced the Blackhawks alumni back in 2016 in a game that was part of the lead up to the Stadium Series.

As much fun as that Stadium Series game might have been, the Winter Classic is much bigger. The idea for an NHL outdoor game began in 2008 with the New Year’s Day game between Pittsburgh and Buffalo at the Bills’ Ralph Wilson Stadium. Delayed a season by the pandemic, the Wild and Blues will start in the evening (in order to avoid issues with the sun) and will be the first televised as part of the new NHL TV package with TNT.

“I would have liked to have played in one,” Maxwell said. “Outdoor games fit into wherever you are having them. If you’re playing in Florida, there’s going to be palm trees. If you’re playing in Minnesota, there are going to be snow flurries and 30-degree weather. It’s great.”

And the opponent can make it even better.

“St. Louis has been a Cup winner in the last few years and has marquee names that are attractive,” Nanne said. “Kirill Kaprizov (of the Wild) and Vladimir Tarasenko (of the Blues) are two big names. When they announced the Wild was getting this game, I didn’t think there was any other team they would play. It’s a very good matchup and an attractive one for fans. I think the NHL was very wise in picking them.”

Program gallery courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey

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With dad’s pads strapped on, Connor Beaupre was ready if needed

 St. Paul — At every Minnesota Wild home game, a suit-clad young man sits anonymously in Xcel Energy Center’s Al Shaver Press Box waiting for his chance to play. He does so with the knowledge that if his skates ever touch the ice below the Wild are deep into crisis mode.

Such is the life of an NHL emergency backup goaltender.

All NHL teams are required to have one on hand and available to either team should both of its goalies become incapacitated due to illness or injury. They are players living a dream never thought possible who are, at the same time, relishing and dreading the opportunity to face NHL competition.

Connor Beaupre is one of those players and the Academy of Holy Angels assistant hockey coach was thrust into the position of serving as Wild goaltender Alex Stalock’s backup on Tuesday night when starter Devan Dubnyk left the game after stopping all 10 shots he faced in Minnesota’s 2-1 shootout win over Calgary.

The son of former Minnesota North Star goaltender Don Beaupre was dressed and ready to go over the final two periods as Stalock made 16 saves in relief through overtime and four of five Calgary shootout attempts. Suiting up was new to the 24-year-old Beaupre who, after spending a couple of games in the role last season, is now splitting games with one other player this season while working around his coaching schedule.

“You’re a little bit nervous going into it,” Beaupre said after the game standing in the Minnesota locker room. “But the more times you come and the more times you skate with the guys, you get more used to it and you’re not so nervous and it’s just another time you’re playing hockey.”

The 2012 Edina High School alum was hurt for much of his senior season when the Hornets won the state tournament that spring. He went on to Denver University and played club hockey before transferring to Minnesota to complete his degree. He has been playing in a couple of men’s leagues in addition to coaching in the years since.

Had he taken the ice, he would have done so in the equipment his father used representing the North Stars in the 2016 NHL Stadium Series Alumni Game against a team of former Chicago Blackhawks the day before the Wild and Chicago squared off at TCF Bank Stadium.

“I got the old hand-me-downs from him so, after he was done with them I took over,” Connor said.

The elder Beaupre, now 56, spent parts of his first nine NHL seasons playing goal for the Minnesota North Stars where he split time with Gilles Meloche in leading Minnesota to the 1981 Stanley Cup Final. Beaupre compiled a 268-277-75 record in 667 games with 17 shutouts  in a 17-year NHL career which also included stops with the Washington Capitals, Ottawa Senators, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Connor had a sense something was up with Dubnyk and was in the elevator heading down to the locker room as team officials frantically tried to reach him when they discovered his press box seat empty.

When Dubnyk did not return and news broke of Beaupre’s elevated status, his phone blew up with a barrage of text messages from former players and family friends.

“I just kind of ignored a lot of them right now and was texting my dad a little bit during the game,” Beaupre said, adding he got no real advice from from his father. “He just said, ‘Well, you better hope Al doesn’t go down or else you’ve got to go in there.’”

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Henry Boucha has been labeled as the most electrifying player in Minnesota hockey history.

Also skilled in football and baseball, Boucha starred for five years at both defense and center for the Warroad High School hockey team. A tall, powerfully-built native American, an Ojibwe, Boucha led Warroad to the 1969 state tournament, where he was injured in an emotionally-charged 5-4 overtime final loss to Edina—one of the all-time classic games in “tourney” history.

“He was the most colorful hockey player ever to come out of Northern Minnesota,” said Warroad coaching legend and fellow Hall of Fame enshrinee Cal Marvin. “When he played, it was so special that he brought people out of the old folks home to come and watch him play. He did it all. He was one of a kind”

Boucha went on to play for the 1972 silver medal winning U.S. Olympic team, and at just 19, he signed with the Detroit Red Wings.

After two years in the Motor City, Boucha “came home” when the Minnesota North Stars acquired him. But his career was tragically curtailed in his third NHL season when he suffered an eye injury on Jan. 4, 1975 against Boston.

He would come back to play for the WHA’s Minnesota Fighting Saints in 1976, and then again in 1977 with the Scouts and Rockies of the NHL, but couldn’t overcome his eye injury. He retired from the game after that at just the age of 24.

Boucha would go on to play for his hometown Warroad Lakers, and then give back by donating much of his time to helping advance various Native American causes.

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MINNEAPOLIS — No autographs, please.

The sign greeted the line of patrons snaking its way around The Pint Public House’s bar Friday night in downtown Minneapolis. Yet Mike Modano stood at the front of it with a Sharpie in hand, grinning as he signed a smattering of memorabilia — including several North Stars jerseys bearing his name and No. 9 — and posed for pictures as part of a pre-arranged meet-and-greet.

The highest-scoring American in NHL history was more stoic Saturday afternoon as he stepped off a tour bus and walked briskly into TCF Bank Stadium. Two hours later, he and 22 other local hockey greats of yesteryear passed underneath a stream of green-lit fireworks and onto the temporary Stadium Series ice here. And the pregame ovation from 37,922 at Saturday’s alumni game when Modano’s name was called ranked among the evening’s loudest.

It’s that kind of zeal that in less than a half-decade endeared Modano to Minnesota — and Minnesota to Modano.

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t have expected,” Modano said. “Just great fans, just passionate people that are loyal about the game and the history of the organization.”

They came to celebrate the State of Hockey’s heritage Saturday. The elder among them have Lou Nanne, Tom Reid, Neal Broten and Dino Ciccarelli. Today’s heroes wear red and go by names like Ryan, Zach and Devan.

But those who endured Minneapolis-St. Paul’s hockey black hole from 1993-2001 also remember fondly the seismic flash before the void.

“The guy, he’s a franchise builder,” said Nanne, who coached the North Stars and Wild alums to a 6-4 victory over Chicago’s old-timers Saturday. “There are very few players that are both franchise players, but then they bring you out of your seats. They’ve got that kind of charisma. He’s one of them, and it’s something that’s special for this community and … in Dallas. But he’s still a big part of Minnesota hockey culture.”

Playing on a line with Brian Bellows and Brian Rolston, Modano skated in a Minnesota sweater for the first time since Norm Green moved the franchise to Dallas in 1993. The 45-year-old spent the first four seasons of his 21-year Hall of Fame career calling the Met Center home ice.

Nanne drafted Modano four days before his 18th birthday, rendering him the second American to be taken first overall. A rookie year that probably should’ve brought Calder Memorial Trophy honors, a Stanley Cup Finals appearance his sophomore season, and 123 goals and 186 assists later, Green ripped Modano and the North Stars away from the Twin Cities and planted them in Dallas.

The latter wishes things could’ve been different.

“I wish it would’ve worked out where we could’ve been able to stay here for a good, long time,” said Modano, who had an empty-net goal and an assist Saturday. “I would’ve loved to see what we would’ve been able to do with 10, 12, 14 years under our belts here.”

Modano will always be remembered as a (Lone) Star. His number, which he wore in homage to both Gordie Howe and Ted Williams, hangs in the American Airlines Center rafters.

Today, the Michigan native lives in Arizona. He’s married to professional golfer Allison Micheletti, the daughter and niece of Joe and Pat Micheletti. He’s a frequent links-goer himself, often swinging clubs with former Stars teammate and fellow 1999 Cup winner Brett Hull.

Sitting in the victors’ dressing room on TCF’s ground level Saturday night, Modano had the Sharpie out again. This time, he was signing jerseys for the likes of Steve Payne and Reed Larson, part of a flurry of signature exchanges among players as they sipped on Coors Light.

And for one day in the sun, at least, Modano was able to return to the beginning.

“Obviously, it’s a sentimental thing,” Modano said. “My career started here. I had four … of the greatest years (of my life).”

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