Cool documentary. I’m from Winnipeg and I never really understood what happened to the North Stars. And 3 years later my beloved Jets went to Phoenix. Glad we both have teams back. Winnipeg vs Minnesota is a a cool rivalry
The Jets were suppose to move to Minneapolis, but the same A-holes who screwed the North Stars, tried screwing the Jets. So the Jets said screw you and moved to Phoenix.
So if another company offered you same employment but only you will make 3 times more ($), does that mean you suck? If it so easy to own an NHL team and if you’re so smart why didn’t you offer to pay Norm Green what it would take to keep the North Stars in Minnesota? Was Norm supposed to continue losing money in Minnesota just to please you?
@@danielsavitz5774 Still doesn’t explain lack of support. If hockey as big as they say it is in Minnesota WHY weren’t fans showing up? Declining attendances year after Cup Final and Twin Cities too slow on new arena options? Dallas much better with 3 times more marketing & revenue options. And Dallas fans spent 3 times more buying tickets than Minnesota fans because they too cheap.
Long Story here, but it’s one of my Favorite Memories with Grandfather before he died. In 1980 when I turned 10, My Grandpa starting bringing me to one Vikings game a Year. If there happened to be a North Stars Game the night before, my Grandpa would get tickets and we would go to the Game. I think it was around 84 and the Oilers were in Town. It was Saturday Afternoon and we had just arrived in the Twin Cities from the Iron Range. I asked my Grandpa if we were going to go the the North Stars Game? He said no not Tonight. I think he saw the disappointment in my face and asked if I was upset. I said no I just wanted to see Wayne Gretzky. He said the Oilers are in Town!? He made one phone call and we had standing room only Tickets for the game. Some of the best seats ever!! My Grandfather was a very boisterous Man, when he cheered You heard on the other side of the stadium. Anyhow he bent down to tie his shoe, at that moment the wave came by us. He jumped up and started screaming at the top of his lungs looking around a little confused as there was a Tv timeout and the players were just standing around. As he looked around he tapped me on my shoulder and ask what had happened? He wanted to know what he was cheering for. I said it was the Wave that went by. We both cracked up and he then bent back down to finish tying his shoe! In 1991 I went into the Air Force, I got Stationed about an hour from Dallas. When the North Stars moved to Dallas, I thought great my Team followed me. I went to one game in Dallas and it wasn’t remotely close to the same as the North Stars playing at Met Center. I became a Sharks Fan that Day!
I was at the very last game ever played at the Met. Ty for a great documentary on my beloved North Stars. I am beyond happy that Modo was a part of this and so candid about it after many years have passed.
Zero upgrades in 25 years to the Met, and you all expected an owner whose fans showed up at 51% attendance to continue to operate in an aged arena. Simply the facts!!
@@randyschmidt5137there weresome upgrades the 2nd group that owned the team back in the 80s spent I think about $5 million and Norm spent $20 Million renovating it in 1991. But it's pathetic that the owners of the Met Center, the Sports Commission, didn't put a dime into it. Making the Northstars owners doing it all instead. But the really pathetic thing was the fan attendance you alluded to. The original owners almost folded the team due to poor attendance. Instead the league merged the Northstars with the Cleveland Barons to try and save one team. With the merger the Cleveland Barons owners took control of the Northstars. The merger and draft picks helped the team improve on the ice and in attendance figures for a while. However starting in the mid 80s the team went downhill in the standings and in attendance figures. Culminating in the 89-90 season where the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance that season. With little fan support and no support from the Sports Commision or the original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center, it looked like the Gund Bros were going to move the team to San Jose. According to a channel 5/Star Tribune poll taken at the end of the 89-90 season fans were asked if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO. These are simple facts.
@@randyschmidt5137 there were some updates to the Met Center. Not paid for by the Sports Commision who owned the Met though. The Gund Bros added some suites in the 80s and Norm Green added some more when he spent $20 million of his own money renovating the Met Center for those ungrateful fair-weather fans. They never mention the Northstars finishing DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. They never mention the poll that the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did after that season asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. Nor did they mention WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners of the Northstars were on the verge of folding the team back in the late 70s due to poor attendance. This was kind of verified by Tom Reid on television when I believe Channel 5 broadcasted the implosion of the Met Center. Before the pushed the plunger down to implode it, a reporter started to interview Tom Reid. He tells the reporter that he was just talking with Walter Bush the original CEO of the Northstars. He said he told Walter "Look at all the fans who came out to see this." He told the reporter Walter's reply. Walter said "Yeah, if all these fans had come to our games we'd still own the team and they'd still be here." You can see that interview right here on TH-cam and see for yourselves. Therse are indisputable FACTS. The fans didn't support them enough. FACTS.
@randyschmidt5137 The Boston Garden, Montreal Forum Maple Leaf Gardens Chicago Stadium St Louis Arena were other " aged" arenas at that time, even older
I was born in 85’. One of my earliest memories is my dad taking me to the last NorthStars home game. I remember just being blown away and living it, I got caught up in the “F Norm Green” chant! I had no idea what was going on or what I was saying, but I remember my dad looking at me stone cold and telling me “after tonight, you can never say that word again”… I didn’t even know what word he was talking about lol.
Even though I have never lived in Minnesota, I do have a couple of connections. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and in the 1982-1983 season, Birmingham had the minor league team, the South Stars. My parents and I loved going to the games and that really helped me love the game of hockey. I now live in Dallas (don't hate me) and yes I do LOVE the Stars. Huge fan....I do respect the hell out of the Minnesota people and the history of the franchise. This is a GREAT documentary!!!!
Their used to be a joke: "Talking to married people about sex is like talking to people from Texas about hockey. They've seen it, they know it exists, but it's not something they would ever want to get involved in." THE ONLY REASON THEY SOLD TICKETS IS BECAUSE ALL THE OTHER SPORTS TEAMS WERE SOLD OUT. These days they vet prospective sport team owners for sufficiernt capitalization. That would have saved the team for Minnesota.
I don't think all 4 major North American sports leagues properly and adequately vet would-be, prospective owners who's backgrounds, industries where they made their fortunes, or most importantly for new owners assuming control of teams with soon-to-be expiring leases, old arenas and stadiums in states/cities where the city councils or state legislatures are showing signs of being reluctant or completely opposed to voting for new, publicly or partially-public financed arenas, stadiums and while maybe the previous owners might have been more patient or lacked the ruthlessness, and cruelty of relocation, the new owners won't have such guilt issues because typically, most aren't from the region and don't share that deep-seated history, bond, and repore/connection with teams' fans, overall community and region akin to the previous owners. A great example is how Clay Bennett in 2006 essentially lied or sufficiently told a gullible Howard Shultz enough of what he wanted to hear in purchasing the Sonics only to formally ask the NBA Board of Governors to relocate to OKC within a year and Bennett said in private emails that "he didnt purchase the team without the intent at some point not to move to OKC". Plus, Seattle city council and WA state legislature after publicly-funding two new stadiums took a hard-line and werent going to fund a new NBA arena, so Bennett exploited that issue inherited from previous owners. Same thing also occured more recently with the Phoenix Coyotes and the Chargers, Raiders NFL franchises all moving to different cities in other states. As despicable and terrible of a person many Minnesotans rightfully view Norm Green as, IMHO, he's a choir boy compared to former Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts owner Robert Irsay. Drunk, rambling, devious yet clueless wreck of an NFL owner for nearly 25 years, although Baltimore and Md. city and state leaders were a bit cheap, petty and vindictive in way-laying Irsay's needs for a new stadium (Memorial Stadium was a horrible, worn-down facility by the early 80's) and then there's the Question P fiasco made possible by the city's duplitious comptroller in the mid-late 70's. Irsay was a terrible owner but older, more mature Baltimore-area sports fans will admit even now he's only partly the villian in their whole sad relocation drama.
Except they left out the biggest reason why the team left: Poor fan support. The original owners merged with the Cleveland Barons because they were on the verge of folding the team due to poor attendance in the mid-late 70s. That wasn't mentioned here. They didn't mention why the Gund Bros planned on moving the team to San Jose. Fan attendance began dropping in the mid 80s as the team started playing poorly. Things hit rock bottom when the Northstars finished the 89-90 season DEAD LAST in attendance. Nor was mentioned the poll taken after the 89-90 season by the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60 %said NO they didn't care. None of that was mentioned. Neither was mentioned how the fans thanked Norm Green for saving the team. When the 90-91 season started fans still stayed away and they stayed away for much of the season. But the team got hot in the 2nd half of the season all the way to the finals AND the Northstars did a season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more ticket for free. That boosted attendance towards the end of the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season. But the team played poorly in the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, AND the season ticket promo ended. With that some dropped their 3rd ticket instead of paying for it and some dropped all their tickets and attendance became an issue again going into the last season. Attendance spiked after Norm announced the team was moving after the season. The NHL fully aware of the history of poor fan support gave up on trying to make NHL successful in Minnesota and allowed Norm to move the team.
Great doc! Loved Sue Nelson playing the organ and her take. Chefs kiss* this theme song slaps for this doc. Really matched the MN Hockey vibe. Nick from 93x telling his story was wonderful. Made me wish I could have gone to a North Stars game myself. I was a little young, 8 when they moved. But apparently that wouldn't have stopped them from letting me bring my own booze inside the arena.
I’m a diehard Dallas Stars fan since 2006, and we love our team through and through and are so grateful to have hockey in our city. With that being said, I am sincerely sorry to North Star fans, and all Minnesotans for that matter, that getting our team came at your expense, I really wish it could have been an expansion team or something that brought hockey to Dallas. Although I’m grateful they came here, I will never feel comfortable praising norm greed or giving him credit in any way. My father was a diehard Houston oilers fan from the 70’s up until the 90’s and they experienced a similar situation when they moved to Tennessee. They took all the colors, logo and history and today none of it remains in Houston, where it belongs. I greatly appreciate the North Stars history, every time I sit in the AAC I look at Masterton’s retired number and think about his legacy, or the legacy of the hometown boy Neal Broten, who also played for the gophers. But much like oilers history, which belongs in Houston, all that North Stars history should be in Minnesota without question. North Stars fans, I’m sincerely sorry we took your team, but I promise we’ll take good care of them. Hey Norm, blow me! (Raises beer 🍺)
I was lucky that my Grandma and Grandpa told me about the North Stars, they even had the Minnesota North Stars: History and Memories with Lou Nanne book that they gave to me. My dad was also Coach by a Former North Stars when he was in High School.
I was lucky enough that my Grandfather and my Dad had season tickets the first 19 seasons. I got to go to many games in the 80s. Second level, second row right in the corner looking over towards the penalty boxes towards the left side. Great seats, you could see everything. The team was great, the Met was packed. When the Northstars scored the Met would erupt with noise from the fans. I would cover my ears as my dad would whitle through his fingers really high pitched. My brother and I would jump around on the platform by our seats. We even went to the same little church as Sue Nelson did. She even played the organ at my parents wedding. Sadly, this video left out a glaring problem for everyone who owned the Northstars: constant fan support. The original owners almost folded the team in the late 70s due to poor attendance figures. This is what lead to the merger with the Cleveland Barons that they barely talked about. They didn't talk about the dwindling fan attendance in the 2nd half of the 80s. The team had started going down hill and many fans stopped going. The team actually finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. None of that was mentioned. With little fan support and zero support from the movers and shakers back then like Bill Lester and his stooges at the Metropolitan Sports Commission, and the original owners of the T-Wolves who built the Target Center and eventually went broke themselves, and local politicians, the Gund Bros planned on moving the team to San Jose because they were willing to build a brand new arena for anyone willing to come. The Star Tribune and Channel 5 news did a poll at the end of that bad 89-90 season, asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said No, they didn't care. Attendance was still a problem after the Northstars were saved. Therr was bump in attendance late in the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season because the team got hot in the 2nd half of the 90-91 season, going all the way to the finals AND a season ticket promo drive were if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. So the attendance figures for 91-92 are a little inflated because teams in the NHL back then survived pretty much on ticket sales, merchandise sales, and corporate sponsors. When a junk of you ticket sales are actually free, your not bring in all the money you should be. With the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, being knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the season ticket promo coming to an end, some fans didn't want to pay for the that free 3rd ticket. Some fans dropped the 3rd ticket, some dropped all 3 tickets and attendance became an issue again. With all of that and yes Norm's legal problems, and no local.ownership group willing to buy the team (not that Norm was going to sell them) the NHL was done trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move them to Dallas. That Northstars book you mentioned tells a lot about what I said. You can also find some of this same info from the Northstars 90-91 season video Shooting Stars. It's on TH-cam
Was too young to know of the ongoings of why hockey teams were being moved. It's nice to see someone finally commit to telling the story of what happened to those of us who werent local or in t"he know" at the time. Wish more places like Atlanta and even the Jets went back and did deep dives like this. North Stars fans have sadly the same reaction to the team leaving as the A's fans did when Fisher took them away this past year.
Only problem is they left out the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support. They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance. The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons. They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season. But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again. With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team. Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans. These are straight up FACTS!
Yeah, this was a really good doc....I moved here in 1999, wasn't a rabid hockey fan. Never even saw a game in person until the Wild came to be. This was great.
Only problem is they left out the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support. They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance. The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons. They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season. But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again. With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team. Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans. These are straight up FACTS.
Excellent doc.... From Detroit but it has never sat well with me what happened to the North Stars when I was a kid. One of the all time hockey hot beds of the US.
Excellent documentary!! I still find it hard to fully get into the Wild because I love the North Stars so much. All these years later and I'm still pissed they left. I have so many wonderful memories watching the games with family and friends. Ice fishing while listening to them on the radio, etc. Norm SUCKS!!!
One reason Norm moved the team was attendance, dead last in the NHL in 1989-90 in 1990-91 the Stanley Cup final season it was a near empty arena until toward the end of the season
Great documentary. What I think people forget is that the fans in Minnesota are as much to blame as norn green for the teams departure. Nobody was attending games in the late eighties and early nineties. They showed up for the cup run in 91, then the next year back to a half capacity building for home games. If I'm the owner, losing money I would have bounced as well.
The North Stars didn't give fans much reason to come to the Met in that era. They stunk. Even the year they made that Cup run, they had a horrible regular season record. They just happened to get hot during the playoffs.
@markminter6312 yep and the wild were horseshit last year, but they still sold out their home dates. So what's your point? Minnesota all of a sudden has more loyal fans?
@mikehanzal9562 Bad team, bad owner, bad arena. The North Stars should have moved to the Target Center. A lot easier to get fans to come out to see a bad team in a good arena with likable ownership.
@@mikehanzal9562ummmm the league now has revenue sharing. They didn’t back then. You can thank the Maple Leafs and Rangers franchise for keeping the Panthers and then Coyotes from folding due to attendance.
Of the many North Stars games I attended at the Met, the 2 that wiil always stick out in my memory were when Henry Boucha was attacked by Dave Forbes of the Boston Bruins and the last one they ever played against the Black Hawks.
My dad and grandparents had season tickets for the Northstars first 19 seasons. My grandparents were at both the Bill Masterton game and the Boucha/Forbes game. My grandpa said both games were sickening.
@@michaelleroy9281 And one double overtime goal at that! That would have been an interesting series!Cesare Maniago would have been in the spotlight. Remember also...Danny Grant and Claude LaRose were on Montreal!
What? Not once did they talk about every owner of the Northstars having to deal with horrible attendance from the fans! They briefly glossed over the merger with the Cleveland Barons with Tom Reid's poliet "bags of air" analogy. It was actually Montreal Canadiens GM at the time Sam Pollock saying "if you have two bags of 💩 and put them together, you have only one bag of 💩". The local owners lost ownership of the Northstars to the owners of the Cleveland Barons because they were the 2 worst teams. So we lost our "local owners" because of lack of support from the fans. If the NHL hadn't done the merger the Northstars would have folded. So all this talk of well they didn't have a "local owner", well that the fans fault. While the Gunds owned the team they started out good thanks to the merger and good draft picks. But starting in the mid 80s the team started going down hill in the standings and the fans started walking away, to the point where the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. That was before Norm showed up. If it wasn't for the Blackhawks owner coming up with the plan to give a great deal for the Gunds the San Jose market with an expansion team and so.e Northstars players and prospects, while also keeping the Northstars in Minnesota, the Northstars would have moved to San Jose. And fans didn't care back then if they did. By the time the 89-90 season it sounded like they would move. The Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. And the fans stayed away from the Northstars when Norm took over the team. He was trying anything to get fans interested. The logo change was part of the NHL'S Vision of the 90s board that Norm was on. Those owners wanted new logos, colors, and uniform styles for NHL teams. That's why every team, except the original 6 had all changed colors or logos or both by the late 90s. Finally it took a season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season & the 91-92 season you'd get 3rd ticket for free for both seasons, and the team playing better in the 2nd half of the season to get attendance numbers up to some level of respect. But with the poor play in the 91-92 season, being knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the free ticket promo ending, some people either dropped their 3rd ticket or dropped all their season tickets and attendance suffered again for the 92-93 season until the announcement of the move. All of this was left out and yet everything I said can be found in the Lou Nanme Northstars Memories book, the Northstars video of the 90-91 season called Shooting Stars and the Dallas Stars 1999 Stanley Cup video. Speaking of that, if the team stayed in Minnesota they wouldn't have won the Cup in 99 because Texas oil tycoon Tom Hicks wouldn't have owned the teaam. So they wouldn't have been able to afford all the superstar talent that he brought in to the team. Extra bonus. Go and find the video of I believe Channel 5 News' coverage of the implosion of the Met Center here on TH-cam. When you do watch it, pay close attention to Tom Reid being interviewed. He tells the reporter that he was just taking to original owner Walter Bush and said to Walter "Look at all these fans who came out to see this." Tom then tells the reporter Walter's reply. Walter said to Tom "Yeah, if all these fans had come to.our games, we'd still own the team and they'd still be here."
I STILL MISS the North Stars, BUT I MISS the Fighting Saints a little bit MORE! Because the Fighting Saints folded as a Minnesota team, rather than moving to a new city and new state, then eventually found success! Thank YOU Fox 9!💚💛💚💛
This documentary was awesome. So awesome, I want another. Do one on the Minnesota Twins at the Metropolitan Stadium. Edit - When Norm Green dies, his grave stone should just read "You Suck".
No it wasn't awesome. It left out a very big problem that always plagued the Northstars: fan support. They didn't say what led to the merger with the Cleveland Barons. It was that the Northstars original owners were on the verge of folding the team due to low attendance. It left out how a handful of seasons after the merger, the team started going down hill in both the standings and in attendance figures. It got so bad that the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. DEAD LAST in ATTENDANCE!!! With little help from fans and no help from the powers to be in the Cities (Sports Commission and the original T-Wolves and Target Center) the Gunds planned on moving the team to San Jose because they were going ahead with a plan to build a new arena for anyone willing to show up and play there. And it sure didn't seem like the people of the "State of Hockey" really cared. The Strib and Channel 5 News did a poll after that abysmal 89-90 season, asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. Nor didn't it show how, after the Blackhawks owner came up with the plan to save the Northstars, the fans said thank you to Howard Baldwin, Morris Belzberg, & Norm Green for saving them team. They thanked them buy not showing up to games at the start of the 90-91 season. The Northstars were in the cellar of the league in attendance and standings again. Thanks to the hot 2nd half run that took the team all the way to finals AND a season ticket promo of if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you one more ticket for both seasons for free. Which kind of inflates the attendance figuers for the 91-92 season. With the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season and the buy 2 get 1 free season ticket promo ended, many weren't willing to pay for that free 3rd ticket now, with some dropping the third ticket and some dropping all their tickets. So attendance was a problem again for the 92-93 season until Norm announced the move to Dallas. Facts are the local fans were fair weather fans. Time and time again they almost lost the Northstars and then they finally did. They almost lost the Timberwolves when the original owners went broke in the mid-90s and the team was almost sold to a group from New Orleans who planned on moving he Wolves down there. The Twins were going to be contracted because attendance stunk in the 2nd half of the 90s. The little independent St Paul Saints baseball team were drawing more fans than the Twins. All the people who like to say "Norm sucks" just need to look in a mirror and see who were the ones to really be blamed for the Northstars leaving town. FACTS
@@danbratten3103 This is true - I remember seeing the "gold" hockey pucks Norm sent season ticket holders after the Cup run thanking them for their support during the start of the season when things were rough. Hell, the Wolves were talking about moving to New Orleans at the same time if not before the North Stars ever started talking about moving. Minnesota fans want a winner, like anywhere else, but the last half-dozen or so years of the North Stars the team was pretty much below average, and you hoped to sneak into the playoffs and go on a run. This kind of play wasn't bringing people out to the games. Having a row of suites wasn't going to change that. Had someone local bought the team from the Gunds, things likely would have ended differently. All this doesn't negate any fond memories of the team or the Met Center - I have 'em, too! But man, before that cup run, when the Wolves showed up, the only people talking North Stars were already playing hockey in a city league or at school, that's it. It became "out of mind" and then "out of sight"
Born,raised & still reside in Detroit i grew up watching the old Norris Division rivalries which included the North Stars, i loved watching games when the Wings played at The Met....i always knew where they were by those colored seats when i turned on the TV. I buy my Red Wings shirts online these days and i only own one other NHL t shirt which i still have, that t shirt is the Minnesota North Stars with that beautiful logo...sorry North Star fans for your loss, for those of us outside your state who remember those days as your teams rivals we miss the North Stars too.
Two killers were Norm covering up the classic multi coloured seats at the Met and making them red and then changing the jerseys. Norm sat behind me and my buddy at the NHL All-Star game in LA in 2002 even though he had already sold the Stars. I wanted to go buy the biggest draft beer Staples Center sold and have a terrible “on purpose” accident.
No. Two killers were the fair-weather fans who mostly only showed up when the team was good. Most fans didn't support the Northstars when they were bad compared to how they support the Mild regardless how crappy they are. Facts are the original owners almost folded the team due to poor attendance in the mid-late 70s. Hence the merger with equally troubled Cleveland Barons. After the merger the Northstars were good for a while and fans showed up. But starting in the mid 80s the team went downhill and so did attendance. They never mentioned the fact that the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. After that season it looked like the Gund Bros were moving the team to San Jose. The Strib and Channel 5 News did a poll after that horrible season asking fans if the cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% responded NO. Thanks to the Blackhawks owner the Northstars were saved when Howard Baldwin, Morris Belzberg, and Norm Green bought the team. The fans thanked them by staying away most of the season. Thanks to the run to the finals and a buy 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season you'd get a 3rd ticket for free promo attendance went up for that year. But with the team's poor play and the ticket promo ending attendance again suffered. The 2nd killer was a group including the Sports Commision and the original owners of the T-Wolves, who made it basically impossible for the Northstars to move to the Target Center.
Nick was honestly my favorite part of the whole doc. If you were gonna get the Everyman perspective on the whole thing, they couldn’t have gotten a better person for it!
That series went the full 7 games and the Northstars were only able to play 2 games at the Met instead of 3. Earlier the owners scheduled the Ice Follies to come perform at the Met. They didn't think the Northstars would get that far in the playoffs. Oops.
You seem to be forgetting the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support. They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance. The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons. They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season. But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again. With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team. Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans. These are straight up FACTS.
Many many memories as a kid of not only the Stars but tailgating with KQ out there blasting music on car speakers, concerts, the Twins and Vikings next door...so bummed and pissed when they left. NORM GREED STILL SUCKS
Yup and Norm thinks your state (Minn) sucks because your state refused to support the North Stars therefore Norm had no choice to bolt for greener pastures (Dallas).
You realize that Brett Hull would have never worn a Northstars jersey, right? Thomas Hicks owned the Stars when they signed Hull and those other great players they had. Hicks was a Texas oil tycoon who also owned the Texas Rangers. He would not have bought the Northstars if they weren't in Texas. So, no move to Dallas no Hicks buying the team. No Hicks as owner means no Hull and the others, except Modano and maybe Zubov. No Hull and company means no Stanley Cup. So it wasn't Minnesota's Cup.
@ EXACTLY! Had Stars stayed in Minn market they wouldn’t of had the funds to increase roster’s talent. In Dallas the revenue basically tripled overnight compared to this so-called State of Hockey in media, advertising & ticket price revenue.
@@LamantBradfprd-k2n yup. A lot of these "fans" up here also like to forget how the team finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season, before Norm Green showed up. The support was so bad the owners at the time were about to move the Northstars to San Jose. There was even a poll taken by the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News after that 89-90 season asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. They don't like to talk about that part of the history of the team. Nor do they like to talk about why the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about ready to fold the Northstars due to poor attendance back in the late 70s. But yeah, they don't like to talk about that either The "State of Hockey". The only state to lose their NHL team because they cared more about college and high school hockey more than their pro team..
I was a North Stars fan going back to their first season when I was in grade school. After the move I completely cut the cord with the team, even rooting for Buffalo to beat the tar out of the Stars in the Stanley Cup Final. The disgust lingers to this day.
The North Stars were one goal away from going to the Cup final in that first year. Wayne Connoly was the first expansion player to score over 30 goals. When Gump showed up in 1969, the North Stars were even more fun to watch!
@@donhuber9131 I remember listening to the great North Stars-Blues semifinal series on a small transistor radio in that first season. The East-West Division setup was ridiculous with the Original Six (East) teams up against the expansion (West) teams. Made for a lopsided Cup Final. Saw my first game in person on March 1, 1970. The North Stars pounded the Maple Leafs 8-0. It went into the record book as the worst defeat a West team handed an East team.
@@donhuber9131and that series went a full 7 games and the Northstars only got to play 2 games at the Met because the Northstars owners scheduled the ice follies to come to the Met way earlier. Oops. My dad and my grandfather had season tickets the first 19 seasons. I loved going to the Met as kid back then.
@@danbratten3103I would say poor scheduling they didn't expect that series with the Blues to go 7 games or the North Stars to go that far in the playoffs
At the 25 minute mark, it reminded me of how me a few others got into a game when a side door was open. We had tickets but no desire to wait in line in 0 degree weather. An employee saw us but kind of shrugged his shoulders figuring we were just trying to escape the cold.
All I remember is empty seats at the Met Centre every time I watched a broadcast as a Canadian in the 80s, thing was, the team at the time was strong and talented, never did dig for info as to why there was no fan support, it was fun when Ciccarelli and Co. visited Edmonton Coliseum so I was doubly surprised when they got a rare second chance with the Wild. Be grateful Minnesota, an NHL franchise is better than none, look at Quebec City. Good to see the Wild become a contending team as a hockey fan.
I like to joke that Northstars gave my family the run to the finals in 81 as gift for me being born in March of 81. My family had season tickets their first 19 seasons. Those white home jerseys that they wore in 81 against the Islanders (Sue Nelson) is wearing it, is my favorite of all their different jerseys they wore.
So watching this in New England as a near GenZer, I feel like I'm missing a couple pieces... Norm couldn't handle himself around women, might've been struggling financially in the early 90s, and you played in a building without luxury suites (which was decently common in the early 90s). The documentary teased the Stanley Cup run against the Penguins while also teasing about how (in the mid 80s?) the North Stars were not even selling out half the building. I appreciate the interviews and interviewees, but I was hoping 30 years after for a better answer to, "How did the state of MN lose pro hockey?" than "Norm Greed sucks"...
That's because the FACTS point the blame to the local fair weather fans, the T-Wolves owners, and the local politicians. They glossed over the merger with the Cleveland Barons and their owners, the Gund Bros., not mentioning the original (and local) owners were on the verge of folding the team due to poor attendance. So with the merger the local owners were out and the Gund Bros now owned the team. After the brief success of the early 80s the team started going down hill in the standings and the attendance dropped with it. Attendance got so bad that the team finished DEAD LAST in attendance in 89-90. The season before Norm Green bought the team. In fact the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll after that season because it sounded like the Gund Bros were moving the team to San Jose. The poll asked fans if they cared if the Northstars left Minnesota? 60% said NO, they didn't care. If not for the Blackhawks owner coming up with a way to give the Gunds a great deal in San Jose with an expansion team and keeping the Northstars in Minnesota, the team would have moved then. Lots of local fans forget that part. After Green bought the team attendance still stunk as the team also was performing poorly trying to get used to a new head coach, new GM, and new owners. The team eventually did a season ticket drive were if you bought two season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season, you'd get a 3rd ticket for free for both seasons. With that and the team starting to play better, attendance started to increase BUT it took all season and that amazing run to the finals in 91. After playing poorly for the 91-92 season, being knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the free ticket option ending, many either dropped the 3rd ticket that had been free, or they dropped all their season tickets and attendance was poor for the last season until the announcement of the move. Also, the Met Center did have a handful of suites. The Sports Commision never put a penny into that place even though they owned it. The Gund Bros put a few in with their own money in the 80s after the Sports Commision refused to help financially. Norm Green added a few more and spent $20 million of his own money renovating the Met, even though he didn't own it. The Met was one of the best arenas in the. NHL by standards of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. And luxury suites weren't the most important thing, because Norm moved the team to Reunion Arena in Dallas and it had zero suites. "And now you know the rest of the story" - Paul Harvey (Google Paul Harvey if you don't get this)
I was a Boston hockey player kid in the 1960's and 70's, and I liked the Minnesota North stars, even though I'm a Boston bruins guy, to me they were the Minnesota hockey mecca, next to my town of Boston, Minnesota is an equal as far as hockey fans and local hockey players. 🏒🇺🇸
Non-Minnesotans never understand why I still dislike Norm Green, and why it still hurts that the North Stars left. I love the Wild, but it almost feels like getting married to someone else after the love of your life left the state.
The BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support. They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance. The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons. They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season. But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again. With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team. Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans. These are straight up FACTS.
I wonder if the Mall of America has ever considered building a midsize hockey arena on the site of the old Met… could host high school and college games potentially
Lou Nanne tried keeping the Met Center up and running for that exact reason. He said it could have hosted tournaments for a variety of sports, regardless of age level. Hell, Russia played it National Cahmpionship tournament at the Met during December of 1993 because of upheaval going in Russia. Lou said it also could have hosted concerts like it had before and conventions. But the stupid local politicians wanted it gone because they needed Target Center to be successful.
I'm 42 , love the Wild and still miss the North Stars and I still wish bad things on norm green.... The politicians and civic leaders who let them go aren't highly thought of either.
Everyone out here blaming Norm Green, but it seems like a big part of this was fans not showing up to games. The state of hockey should always sell out games no matter how bad the team is.
Norm Green be like "Why does everyone in Minnesota hate me? All I did was take their hockey team & move them to Texas, just because I didn't get what I wanted".
Wish i was old enough to have seen a game at The Met, unfortunately being born in 1999 they were long gone. My mom says it was like entering the gates of heaven. All I've ever know is the X, but in 2020-21 when the wild started honoring the North Stars with the reverse retro throwbacks, that have gradually evolved into the 78's alternate jersey, it just feels right.
@@randyschmidt5137 well Bobby Orr would disagree with you. The Hall of Famer and debatable greatest hockey player ever, said the Met Center was the best arena in the NHL when he played from 1967-1978ish. And no one in my family thought is was dump while we lived their and had season tickets. Compared to the other expansion teams of 67 and the Original 6 teams arenas, the Met Center was the best arena. If it wasn't for the Met the NHL wouldn't have come to Minnesota because all the arenas back then were dumps.
I was at the last game against the Blackhawks, I ripped the armrest off my seat for a keepsake, still have the ticket stub tacked to it. We would buy student tickets for like $10!
Bruh, I was fairly young at the time, like 12. Went to a ton of games. Was in tears for months when they left. As a child I had no idea why they were leaving me. I've been to Wild games. It's ok. I just feel the Northstars logo, colors, and the atmosphere of the ol Met Center was leaps and bounds better than the wild. Xcel Center is in a city which also sucks. No tailgating and what not. It's just not the same for me at least. Maybe if they get to a cup it will be different. The Craziest moment for me at a Northstar game was when Todd Elik took a puck to the ol facehole behind the net. Man, the blood stain on the ice for the rest of the game was disturbing. Will never forget that day. He was ok after about a thousand stitches.
When Lou Nanne came to town the very first time they had him f8ill out a standard job application at the North Stars office. He and other players sold printing in the summer to make money. The team failed for two reasons. Minnesotans want to call teams their own but don't understand they are businesses not teddy bears to hug and love. Norm Green was an ego that targeted women beholden to him. Dino Ciccarelli's mess didn't help the North Stars image either. Minnesotans want to believe that the teams belong to them and are extensions of their identity and culture. For God's sake, the Vikings used to have the St. Louis Park Parkettes as their dance and cheer squad. When the Twin Cities hosted the super bowl they had "snowflakes" dancing on the field at the half time show. Too many people in Minnesota think they know lots about pro sports and they don't really know anything. Minnesota owes Bill Masterson a debt of gratitude for his sacrifice to the team and state.
You are right. But the biggest issue was the fans not supporting the team like they should have. Every owner the Northstars had were plagued by attendance issues. Something conveniently left out here.
North Stars - Blackhawks in the 1980s was the fiercest , meanest rivalry I've seen. In any sport. The games at the Stadium in Chicago were absolute wars..... "Dino s*cks , Dino s*cks" and "Ca-sey...Ca-sey" lol. Good times
As a Hartford Whalers fan growing up (I'm from CT), I completely feel for the NorthStars fans for what they went through ..... Thankfully, they got the Wild 7 seasons later .. CT got the Ranger's AHL team!
Life long Northstars fan here: What an absolute joke. Not once in this whole story was mentioned the biggest problem facing the Northstars: The fair weather fans of the Twin Cities. Not mentiond once. Let's not kid ourselves, when the Northstars weren't playing well, the Met was not full like the X has been, no matter how bad the Mild are. You all pout that an outsider took the team away. Well, if the people of the State of Hockey really cared, Norm would have never gotten the team. The team's original owners were all from the Twin Cities. They almost folded the team in the late 70s because of such crappy attendance. So, in order to keep the team, the league merged with the Cleveland Barons, and the Barons owners got the Northstars. The GM of the Montreal Canadiens used a bit more vulgar language than Tom Reid's "bags of air" lol. Thanks to the merger and a couple of good draft picks, the team got good again, and the fans came back........for a while. Bad draft picks, bad trades, bad coaches hired (that's all on you, Lou), and the team dropped in the standings, and they dropped in attendance again. The year before Norm showed up, the Northstars finished dead last in attendance. DEAD LAST!!! You couldn't draw more fans than Quebec City or Hartford?!? The only two things that helped attendance again was the buy 2 get 1 free season ticket drive for the remainder of that season and the next season (91-92. 2nd to last season) and the team getting hot and going on the run to the finals. After that, attendance dropped again. When the Met was blown up, Tom Reid said on television how he said to original owner Walter Bush, "Look how many people came to see this." And Walter said,"Yeah, if all these people had come to our games, we'd still own the team, and they'd still be here." So most of the blame goes to all those fans who didn’t show up. You also almost lost the Twins to contraction because they were drawing less fans than the little St. Paul Saints were in the late 90s. You almost lost the Timberwolves after the original owners went broke building the Target Center and the Metropolitan Sports Commission taking ownership of that (that will sound familiar soon). Blame also goes to the Metropolitan Sports Commission. They fleeced ownership of the Met from the original Northstars owners who had it built and then refused to maintain the place. Norm Green spent $20 million of his own money renovating that place. You don't do that if you are thinking of leaving town. Which leads to the logo change. Don't get me wrong, I will always love the N* logo. I have at least one of every kind of jersey they wore with that logo and two prototypes they never used, but that new logo was on the ice in the neutral zone, and on the boards the year they went to the finals. That was the first year Norm owned them. Norm was on the NHL's Vision of the 90s board. The owners on that board wanted new looking logos and colors and jersey styles for their teams. Every team besides the original 6 teams either changed their logos, or colors or both in the 90s because the 2 best selling jerseys were the LA Kings, who dropped their old logo and purple and gold colors when they signed Gretzky, and the San Jose Sharks with their edgy logo. Besides, you don't need to change your name and logo before moving a team. Just ask the Carolina Hurricanes, the Colorado Avalanche, and the New Jersey Devils. These teams had different names, logos, and colors right up until they moved to their current cities. I didn't blame the Metropolitan Sports Commission enough earlier. Bill Lester and his stooges did nothing to help the Northstars. After the Northstars were gone, the Winnipeg Jets were going to move to Minneapolis and to Target Center. Heck, they even hired former Northstars great Bobby Smith to be the GM going into MN. The Sports Commision and the Timberwolves and Target Center planned on trying to screw the Jets over the same way they wanted to screw over the Northstars. So the Jets said to hell with that and moved to Phoenix instead. So all those fans who say "Norm Green Sucks". No, you suck. Over and over, you didn't support the team. Original owners almost folding the team and the Gunds almost moving them to San Jose. By the way, Channel 5 News and the Strib did a poll at the end of the 89-90 season asking fans if they would care if the team moves to San Jose, and 60% said "NO." By 93, the NHL had enough and let Norm move the team. Oh, and that Cup the Stars won in 99 would not have happened in Minnesota because Tom Hicks owned the team by then and dumped a bunch of money into that team. So it isn't "your Cup". There were only 3 Northstars on that Dallas team in 99: Modano, Derian Hatcher, and Shawn Chambers (I have a game worn jersey of his) and he wasn't with the Northstars their last 2 years. The Mild will never win the Stanley Cup. And that is a curse for not suppprting the Northstars like you should have. State of Hockey? Yeah right. The only state to lose an NHL team because the locals cared more about high school hockey and college hockey than their NHL team. Don't get me wrong. I'm still mad Norm moved the team, but in regards to who gets the blame, he's a distant 3rd to the local fans and the Metropolitan Sports Commission. But it was nice seeing Sue Nelson and hearing her play the organ again. I went to the same church as her. She even played the organ at my parents' wedding.
Are we Twins???? I been telling sour “North Stars Fans” the attendance and Sports Commission issues for years! You and I get it! The Wild marketing trying to turn the team into the North Stars is embarrassing. I’m not a fan of the Wild as I immediately adopted another pro team (not the Stars). The laugher is a 30 year old saying Norm Green sucks, and they were not even born when the team moved! Bitter fans passing the anger down and not embracing their team comes off…well…not State of Hockey. The true unconditionally supported Minnesota Hockey team is: Minnesota Golden Gophers
@randyschmidt5137 BROTHER!!!! 😃 LOL 🤣 You nailed it! Especially at the end about the Gophers. In Sports Illustrated's article about the North Stars moving, a "fan" said, "You could pay $10 & watch the Gophers win, or pay $20 and watch the Northstars lose." That's sums up a lot of those people.
When pro hockey came back to MN and we as fans and citizens were able to vote for the team name, I voted for Minnesota Northern Lights because I thought it was the best choice and 2, we could've gone back to the N jerseys. I was disappointed in my fellow Minnesotans in choosing the Wild at the time.
Dallas has become a great NHL market. Just like Washington D.C. metro area, where the Capitals took a lot of years to help it become one as well. My perspective as a Chicago Blackhawks fan since 1974, who has lived in both areas. Dallas had pro hockey earlier with Chicago's farm team of the Central Hockey League. They existed from 1967-82.
I was 11. Held up a sign at the Met that said "Norm Green is Mean!" Mostly because my mom wouldn't let me put "Norm Green Sucks!" on it. Broke my heart when they left.
As much as it sucked for Minnesota North Star fans to watch the Dallas Stars wiin the Stanley Cup & Minnesota being known as the hockey state as well as being well known for having good “NCAA” hockey teams it shocked me when Minnesota folded. It really sucked when the Quebec Nordiques folded & moved to Colorado & in Colorado’s first NHL season they win the Stanley Cup :-/ talk about a kick to the nuts eh lol. I grew up in a small town in Canada called “St.Marys,Ontario,Canada” & my childhood hero from St.Marys was #20 Mike Craig who is six years older than me & was on that Minnesota North Stars team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals vs Pittsburgh to lose but we were all very proud of Mike Craig & he was still on that Minnesota team when they moved to Dallas.
I have at least 1 of every kind they wore, including the crooked N ones they wore for their first preseason only, and two prototypes they didn't use (not the one Mark shows in this video), and a game worn one. My personal favorite is the white one Sue Nelson is wearing in this documentary, that the team wore at home from 79-81. Incidently, I went to same church as Sue when I was a kid up there. She played the organ at my parents wedding.......a long time ago.
Only problem is the left out the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support. They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance. The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons. They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season. But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again. With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team. Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans. These are straight up FACTS.
Wasn't there a neon light of the owners' names at the Met Center? For the life of me, I can't remember if it was for the Gunds or Norm Green since I was too young to know who any of these guys were, but I vividly recall the sign being turned off after it was announced somebody was leaving and I think it was KSTP's Joe Schmit who reported on it for the 10 o'clock news that night.
Having been born in 1990 I have no memory of the North Stars but there is no doubt that if we ever win a Stanley Cup with the Wild it will certainly be dedicated the North Star fans. I for one have a North Star jersey out of respect to the past and for how f-ing cool the dang thing is especially compared to the "man-bear-pigs" as Nick would say. Nothing against the Wild logo but love that North Star logo. Go Wild and go North Stars!
"man-bear-pigs" love it. That describes that logo perfectly. My grandfather and my dad had Northstars season tickets for the first 19 seasons. I like to joke that the team gave my family a gift for my birth when a couple months after I was born they made it to the finals for the first time in 1981. I got all their jerseys and memorabilia. I still haven't gone to a Wild game or been to the X. Probably never will.
Lived it. Of course it sucks that the Dallas Stars have had lots of success and even this past week - Stars have beaten the MN Wild 7 times in a row. Hopefully the WILD will win a CUP before I am too old to enjoy. I think they will....
@@michaelleroy9281 I think it was a lot closer than many people remember, the only game that wasnt close was #6, the others were all nail biters pretty much
The fans didn't show the first half either. They also didn't show up the season before. The 89-90 season the North Stars finished DEAD LAST in attendance. The Gunds almost moved the team to San Jose because of horrible attendance. The original owners almost folded the team due to poor attendance in the late 70s. But I digress. Lol
@@jaycob1830game 4 at the Met had the Penguons score 3 goals inside of the first 3 minutes of the game. The Northstars clawed back to within one. Sadly Neal Broten had 3 great opportunities to tie the game in the 3rd but missed/robbed on all 3 chances. Penguins score an empty netter and win 5-3. Game 5 in Pittsburgh the Penguins score the first 4 goals in the first 13 minutes of the game and the Northstars spend the rest of the game trying to catch up, ultimately losing 6-4. Casey lost his magic in goal and the power play short circuited in the finals.
We almost lost them before Norm even showed up! The Gund Bros were going to move the team to San Jose because attendance kept dwindling in the late 80s to the point of the Northstars finishing DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. The Gunds were going to move the team to San Jose after that season. And Bill Lester and his stooges and the T-Wolves owners were screwing over the Gunds before Norm was around. And then they tried screwing over the Winnipeg Jets when they WANTED to move to Minneapolis and the Target Center. But with the same crap deals the Gunds and later Norm got, the Jets owner said to heck with that and moved to Phoenix instead (also left out of this). We also almost lost the team in the late 70s when the original (local) owners almost folded the team due to horrible attendance (thanks St Paul and the BOTH versions of the WHA Fighting Saints). Fair-weather fans cost us the Northstars due to poor attendance problems over many years with all the different owners. Just like how we almost lost the Twins to contraction due to terrible attendance in the second half of the 90s. Just like we almost lost the Timberwolves after only a handful of years because the original owners went broke. We lost the Northstars because of the stupid politicians, especially the Sports Commision fleecing ownership of the Met Center from the original owners who had it built. They wouldn't put a penny into the Met. The Gunds pur some suites in and so did Norm Green when he spent $20 million of his own money renovating the Met. No one spends $20 million on a rink they don't own if they don't want to be there and are planning on moving. Yes, Norm had his issues, and he made the ultimate decision to move the team. But all these people pointing the finger at Norm blaming him have three fingers pointing back at them. They are the ones to really blame.
@@michaelleroy9281he was not the majority owner but he was part of the ownership group. But the Flames, like the Northstars, were suffering from horrible fan support with terrible attendance. Hell, they finished DEAD LAST in attendance the season before Norm bought the team.
@@danbratten3103Not until the team was already in Calgary he was part of 6 man ownership group, Tom Cousins was the owner in Atlanta, sold the team to Nelson Skalbania, who later sold the team to the 6 men
@@danbratten3103The Flames were dead last in attendance in the NHL in their first 2 seasons because the team was playing out of the Stampede Corral with a capacity of 6,400 while the Olympic Saddledome (capacity 19,000) was under construction. Needless to say, they sold out the joint during those initial seasons.
Outstanding documentary...to this day is still hate the name wild and their colors...the NHL should do whats right and help us get the name and colors back from dallas. I sit here staring at my 1990-1991 northstars stanley cup pennant at this moment.
I had to delete what I really wanted to say. 1000% that cup in Dallas was was ours. This whole situation was garbage, Bill Lester is a snake who sold us out, Norm Green still sucks and if I ever run into those Dallsa fans that said "Thank you Minnesota" I'll probably be in jail for punching them square in the chops. Same with Lester come to think of it.
Eastern Canada lost two teams that had great fans: the Expos in baseball and the Nordiques in hockey. Atlanta lost its franchises twice. Winnipeg and Minnesota lost it once, only to get another one later. There are many other examples. The system of franchises that can be bought and moved is totally horrible for fans. Do the professional leagues think about it? I don't think so. As a legal person, she has no empathy. I am far from Minnesota, but I remember that the North Stars were a good organization. It was indeed incomprehensible, because the cradles of American hockey were at the time in Boston and Minnesota. We saw later what the NHL was concerned about: expansion into regions that did not know the sport, but which were a big market.
All these fans must have been disguised as yellow, brown, green and white seats. 91 has inaccurately skewed the memory of the Stars place in the community after Dino left. Other than a couple Basil McCrae scraps and Modano getting smoked by Kordic, there wasn't much meat on the bone in those latter years.
Reflecting back now from when this happened when I was a teenager, the worst thing was that Dallas did not change the name. They should have named their team to something texas related, because the North Stars had one of the coolest logos and colors and when Hockey did finally come back the idiots in charge named the team one of the stupidest names in the history of sports.
I arrived in the Cities in the Fall of 1992. I saw Gretzky play his last game at Met Center in the Spring of '93- what a great barn!! I still remember the shock when the headline read "My Stars- They're Gone!". It just did not seem possible. It still doesn't. I left years ago and am glad they got a team back, but I just don't see how a rebuilt St. Paul Civic Center holds a candle to the Met- to say nothing of all that history. So the Devil with Norm Green. He still sucks, and will always will. And here's to Gary Bettman for putting hockey where it never should have been, for taking it out of Quebec and Minnesota, and for other sins not yet revealed. I'm sure they exist. Go Wild! (I guess...)
1.) The Wild don't play at the Civic Center, and the Xcel is one of the best buildings in the league and has served as an inspiration for almost every hockey arena built since. 2.) Gary Bettman wasn't the commissioner when the Stars moved and has been quoted as saying he "would never have let the NHL leave Minnesota"
I get why a lot of Minnesota hockey fans were very upset about this it’s almost like taking away the habs or leafs away from hockey, pretty much Minnesota is the state of hockey for USA
The fans weren't very supportive. The original owners almost folded the team in the late 70's due to horrible attendance. The merger with Cleveland saved the team, but it meant the local owners sold the team to the Cleveland owners, the Gund Bros. The merger helped the team in the early 80s and the fans came back. But bad trades, draft picks, and coaches hired, had the team doing poorly by the late 80s and attendance plummeted again. They finished dead last in attendance in 89-90. That was the last year the Gund Bros owned the team and they were going to move them to San Jose. The Blackhawks owner came up with a way to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let the Gunds have a team in San Jose. The next season (90-91) so fans stayed away for most of the season until the team came up with a season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of that season and the next season (91-92) you would get a 3rd for free, and the team started playing better. After the 91-92 season ended in the first round of the playoffs that free extra ticket promo ended. Most fans either dropped the 3rd ticket that had been free or dropped all of them entirely. So their last season, attendance was an issue. Are you seeing a familiar problem happening? Yes, there were other factors: the Sporst Commission, the T-Wolves owners at Target Center, local politicians, BUT the biggest issue was fan attendance and the lack of it, plaguing every owner of the team. The hockey team with biggest support has always been the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's team. Followed by high school hockey. The fans cared more about them than the Northstars.
True, kids who serious about youth hockey when you’re under 18 likely don’t have money or own vehicle to attend North Star games and the PARENTS only cared about hockey if their kid was on the Pee Wee team or varsity team, etc., but these Minnesota parents didn’t give hoot about North Stars or NHL! Why? Their kid was not on the team. Here where else a Minnesotan will NEVER believe me. When I grew up in Western Wisconsin more locals talked about, watched or listened to North Stars than Minnesota towns. How do I know? I lived in Wisconsin when North Stars played in 1981 Cup Finals and lived in Minnesota when North Stars played in 1991 Cup Finals. The interest & enthusiasm a lot less in the Minnesota towns. For every Minnesotan that brought up the 1991 North Stars in Wisconsin the ratio of hockey talk and North Stars 5 times more, evidence that Wisconsin cared more about the North Stars than those in their own state (Minn) and that Minnesota is more about youth or college hockey.
The truth is Minnesota statewide SUCKED for their support of the North Stars or interest in the NHL. If not for Wisconsin which was at least 15% of the ticket buyers the North Stars would have folded long before 1993! I grew up in a Western Wisconsin town where my bankers North Star season-ticket holders including the Club Room & free parking etc. Then when I moved to a Minnesota town the support not nearly the same as no banks had North Stars season tickets and this Minnesota town not only bigger than the Wisconsin town but 20 MINUTES CLOSER TO THE MET. I also knew of no one in this Minnesota town that were North Stars season ticket holders but knew of 4 parties that were North Stars season ticket holders in my old Wisconsin town.
Only if the Metropolitan Sports Commission, the original owners of Timberwolves, and the fans learned their lessons. The fans did, but the Commission and the T-Wolves didn't. Thank goodness that Commission had no say in anything involved with the Xcel Center.
I had to delete what I really wanted to say. Thanks for ripping thst scab wide open. Thought I was over it but not anymore. 1000% that cup in Dallas was was ours. This whole situation was garbage, Bill Lester is a snake who sold us out, Norm Green still sucks, North Star fans were sold out for $32 million in today's dollars, Thank God, for Norm Coleman, and if I ever run into those Dallas fans that said "Thank you Minnesota Go Stars" I'll probably be in jail for punching them square in the chops. Same with Lester come to think of it. But hey, Bill, it's personal not business.
There was no way that 99 Cup would have been won in Minnesota. Oil tycoon Tom Hicks owned the Stars then and dumped a bunch of money into the Stars by bringing in Ed Belfour, Sergi Zubov, Brett Hull and others. Hicks would not have owned the Northstars if they were in Minnesota. So all those key players mentioned above wouldn't have been there. Hypothetically if the Northstars were still in Minnesota in 99, they'd still be struggling with horrible attendance like they did in the past. Don't believe me? Just look at how bad attendance was for the almost contracted Twins in the late 90s. The independent St. Paul Saints were drawing more fans than the Twins..
Cool documentary. I’m from Winnipeg and I never really understood what happened to the North Stars. And 3 years later my beloved Jets went to Phoenix. Glad we both have teams back. Winnipeg vs Minnesota is a a cool rivalry
They didn't come back overnight however, 7 years for the Wild 15 years for the Jets that's a long time of waiting for both
@ better than never
The Jets were suppose to move to Minneapolis, but the same A-holes who screwed the North Stars, tried screwing the Jets. So the Jets said screw you and moved to Phoenix.
@@danbratten3103 No. the Timberwolves didn’t want to share the Target Centre. And there was no other arena in the area
I'm an Avalanche fan and I can feel the pain of the Quebec fans as well as the North Stars fans and Winnipeg
Thanks for watching and I’m so happy to be a part of this. And of course , Norm Green sucks!
So if another company offered you same employment but only you will make 3 times more ($), does that mean you suck? If it so easy to own an NHL team and if you’re so smart why didn’t you offer to pay Norm Green what it would take to keep the North Stars in Minnesota? Was Norm supposed to continue losing money in Minnesota just to please you?
@@LamantBradfprd-k2n did you just skip the part about the alleged SA
@@danielsavitz5774 Still doesn’t explain lack of support. If hockey as big as they say it is in Minnesota WHY weren’t fans showing up? Declining attendances year after Cup Final and Twin Cities too slow on new arena options? Dallas much better with 3 times more marketing & revenue options. And Dallas fans spent 3 times more buying tickets than Minnesota fans because they too cheap.
@@LamantBradfprd-k2ndo you sexually harass women with Norm Green in Dallas? Sure looks that way.
Oh and of course the Dallas Stars were BANKRUPT before the current owner bought them.
Long Story here, but it’s one of my Favorite Memories with Grandfather before he died. In 1980 when I turned 10, My Grandpa starting bringing me to one Vikings game a Year. If there happened to be a North Stars Game the night before, my Grandpa would get tickets and we would go to the Game. I think it was around 84 and the Oilers were in Town. It was Saturday Afternoon and we had just arrived in the Twin Cities from the Iron Range. I asked my Grandpa if we were going to go the the North Stars Game? He said no not Tonight. I think he saw the disappointment in my face and asked if I was upset. I said no I just wanted to see Wayne Gretzky. He said the Oilers are in Town!? He made one phone call and we had standing room only Tickets for the game. Some of the best seats ever!! My Grandfather was a very boisterous Man, when he cheered You heard on the other side of the stadium. Anyhow he bent down to tie his shoe, at that moment the wave came by us. He jumped up and started screaming at the top of his lungs looking around a little confused as there was a Tv timeout and the players were just standing around. As he looked around he tapped me on my shoulder and ask what had happened? He wanted to know what he was cheering for. I said it was the Wave that went by. We both cracked up and he then bent back down to finish tying his shoe! In 1991 I went into the Air Force, I got Stationed about an hour from Dallas. When the North Stars moved to Dallas, I thought great my Team followed me. I went to one game in Dallas and it wasn’t remotely close to the same as the North Stars playing at Met Center. I became a Sharks Fan that Day!
I was at the very last game ever played at the Met. Ty for a great documentary on my beloved North Stars. I am beyond happy that Modo was a part of this and so candid about it after many years have passed.
Great job on this documentary. Its been 30 years, and my blood still boils watching them blow up the Met, and re-living the Norm Green era.
At least it didn't go in the first round. They had to use a wrecking ball since the explosives didn't do the job.
Zero upgrades in 25 years to the Met, and you all expected an owner whose fans showed up at 51% attendance to continue to operate in an aged arena.
Simply the facts!!
@@randyschmidt5137there weresome upgrades the 2nd group that owned the team back in the 80s spent I think about $5 million and Norm spent $20 Million renovating it in 1991. But it's pathetic that the owners of the Met Center, the Sports Commission, didn't put a dime into it. Making the Northstars owners doing it all instead.
But the really pathetic thing was the fan attendance you alluded to.
The original owners almost folded the team due to poor attendance. Instead the league merged the Northstars with the Cleveland Barons to try and save one team.
With the merger the Cleveland Barons owners took control of the Northstars. The merger and draft picks helped the team improve on the ice and in attendance figures for a while. However starting in the mid 80s the team went downhill in the standings and in attendance figures. Culminating in the 89-90 season where the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance that season.
With little fan support and no support from the Sports Commision or the original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center, it looked like the Gund Bros were going to move the team to San Jose. According to a channel 5/Star Tribune poll taken at the end of the 89-90 season fans were asked if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO.
These are simple facts.
@@randyschmidt5137 there were some updates to the Met Center. Not paid for by the Sports Commision who owned the Met though.
The Gund Bros added some suites in the 80s and Norm Green added some more when he spent $20 million of his own money renovating the Met Center for those ungrateful fair-weather fans.
They never mention the Northstars finishing DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. They never mention the poll that the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did after that season asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
Nor did they mention WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners of the Northstars were on the verge of folding the team back in the late 70s due to poor attendance. This was kind of verified by Tom Reid on television when I believe Channel 5 broadcasted the implosion of the Met Center.
Before the pushed the plunger down to implode it, a reporter started to interview Tom Reid. He tells the reporter that he was just talking with Walter Bush the original CEO of the Northstars. He said he told Walter "Look at all the fans who came out to see this." He told the reporter Walter's reply. Walter said "Yeah, if all these fans had come to our games we'd still own the team and they'd still be here."
You can see that interview right here on TH-cam and see for yourselves.
Therse are indisputable FACTS. The fans didn't support them enough. FACTS.
@randyschmidt5137 The Boston Garden, Montreal Forum Maple Leaf Gardens Chicago Stadium St Louis Arena were other " aged" arenas at that time, even older
I was born in 85’. One of my earliest memories is my dad taking me to the last NorthStars home game. I remember just being blown away and living it, I got caught up in the “F Norm Green” chant! I had no idea what was going on or what I was saying, but I remember my dad looking at me stone cold and telling me “after tonight, you can never say that word again”… I didn’t even know what word he was talking about lol.
Even though I have never lived in Minnesota, I do have a couple of connections. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and in the 1982-1983 season, Birmingham had the minor league team, the South Stars. My parents and I loved going to the games and that really helped me love the game of hockey. I now live in Dallas (don't hate me) and yes I do LOVE the Stars. Huge fan....I do respect the hell out of the Minnesota people and the history of the franchise. This is a GREAT documentary!!!!
Their used to be a joke: "Talking to married people about sex is like talking to people from Texas about hockey. They've seen it, they know it exists, but it's not something they would ever want to get involved in."
THE ONLY REASON THEY SOLD TICKETS IS BECAUSE ALL THE OTHER SPORTS TEAMS WERE SOLD OUT.
These days they vet prospective sport team owners for sufficiernt capitalization. That would have saved the team for Minnesota.
I don't think all 4 major North American sports leagues properly and adequately vet would-be, prospective owners who's backgrounds, industries where they made their fortunes, or most importantly for new owners assuming control of teams with soon-to-be expiring leases, old arenas and stadiums in states/cities where the city councils or state legislatures are showing signs of being reluctant or completely opposed to voting for new, publicly or partially-public financed arenas, stadiums and while maybe the previous owners might have been more patient or lacked the ruthlessness, and cruelty of relocation, the new owners won't have such guilt issues because typically, most aren't from the region and don't share that deep-seated history, bond, and repore/connection with teams' fans, overall community and region akin to the previous owners.
A great example is how Clay Bennett in 2006 essentially lied or sufficiently told a gullible Howard Shultz enough of what he wanted to hear in purchasing the Sonics only to formally ask the NBA Board of Governors to relocate to OKC within a year and Bennett said in private emails that "he didnt purchase the team without the intent at some point not to move to OKC". Plus, Seattle city council and WA state legislature after publicly-funding two new stadiums took a hard-line and werent going to fund a new NBA arena, so Bennett exploited that issue inherited from previous owners.
Same thing also occured more recently with the Phoenix Coyotes and the Chargers, Raiders NFL franchises all moving to different cities in other states.
As despicable and terrible of a person many Minnesotans rightfully view Norm Green as, IMHO, he's a choir boy compared to former Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts owner Robert Irsay. Drunk, rambling, devious yet clueless wreck of an NFL owner for nearly 25 years, although Baltimore and Md. city and state leaders were a bit cheap, petty and vindictive in way-laying Irsay's needs for a new stadium (Memorial Stadium was a horrible, worn-down facility by the early 80's) and then there's the Question P fiasco made possible by the city's duplitious comptroller in the mid-late 70's. Irsay was a terrible owner but older, more mature Baltimore-area sports fans will admit even now he's only partly the villian in their whole sad relocation drama.
Except they left out the biggest reason why the team left: Poor fan support.
The original owners merged with the Cleveland Barons because they were on the verge of folding the team due to poor attendance in the mid-late 70s. That wasn't mentioned here.
They didn't mention why the Gund Bros planned on moving the team to San Jose. Fan attendance began dropping in the mid 80s as the team started playing poorly. Things hit rock bottom when the Northstars finished the 89-90 season DEAD LAST in attendance. Nor was mentioned the poll taken after the 89-90 season by the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60 %said NO they didn't care.
None of that was mentioned. Neither was mentioned how the fans thanked Norm Green for saving the team. When the 90-91 season started fans still stayed away and they stayed away for much of the season. But the team got hot in the 2nd half of the season all the way to the finals AND the Northstars did a season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more ticket for free. That boosted attendance towards the end of the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season. But the team played poorly in the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, AND the season ticket promo ended. With that some dropped their 3rd ticket instead of paying for it and some dropped all their tickets and attendance became an issue again going into the last season. Attendance spiked after Norm announced the team was moving after the season.
The NHL fully aware of the history of poor fan support gave up on trying to make NHL successful in Minnesota and allowed Norm to move the team.
Great job Skins!! Fun to watch. Hope to see more in the future.
Great doc! Loved Sue Nelson playing the organ and her take. Chefs kiss* this theme song slaps for this doc. Really matched the MN Hockey vibe. Nick from 93x telling his story was wonderful. Made me wish I could have gone to a North Stars game myself. I was a little young, 8 when they moved. But apparently that wouldn't have stopped them from letting me bring my own booze inside the arena.
I’m a diehard Dallas Stars fan since 2006, and we love our team through and through and are so grateful to have hockey in our city. With that being said, I am sincerely sorry to North Star fans, and all Minnesotans for that matter, that getting our team came at your expense, I really wish it could have been an expansion team or something that brought hockey to Dallas. Although I’m grateful they came here, I will never feel comfortable praising norm greed or giving him credit in any way. My father was a diehard Houston oilers fan from the 70’s up until the 90’s and they experienced a similar situation when they moved to Tennessee. They took all the colors, logo and history and today none of it remains in Houston, where it belongs. I greatly appreciate the North Stars history, every time I sit in the AAC I look at Masterton’s retired number and think about his legacy, or the legacy of the hometown boy Neal Broten, who also played for the gophers. But much like oilers history, which belongs in Houston, all that North Stars history should be in Minnesota without question. North Stars fans, I’m sincerely sorry we took your team, but I promise we’ll take good care of them. Hey Norm, blow me! (Raises beer 🍺)
Very well done. Long live the North Stars memories and the spectacular Metropolitan Sports Center. 🏒💚
Spectacular in 1967, not so much in the final seasons
I was lucky that my Grandma and Grandpa told me about the North Stars, they even had the Minnesota North Stars: History and Memories with Lou Nanne book that they gave to me. My dad was also Coach by a Former North Stars when he was in High School.
I was lucky enough that my Grandfather and my Dad had season tickets the first 19 seasons. I got to go to many games in the 80s. Second level, second row right in the corner looking over towards the penalty boxes towards the left side. Great seats, you could see everything. The team was great, the Met was packed. When the Northstars scored the Met would erupt with noise from the fans. I would cover my ears as my dad would whitle through his fingers really high pitched. My brother and I would jump around on the platform by our seats. We even went to the same little church as Sue Nelson did. She even played the organ at my parents wedding.
Sadly, this video left out a glaring problem for everyone who owned the Northstars: constant fan support. The original owners almost folded the team in the late 70s due to poor attendance figures. This is what lead to the merger with the Cleveland Barons that they barely talked about.
They didn't talk about the dwindling fan attendance in the 2nd half of the 80s. The team had started going down hill and many fans stopped going. The team actually finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. None of that was mentioned.
With little fan support and zero support from the movers and shakers back then like Bill Lester and his stooges at the Metropolitan Sports Commission, and the original owners of the T-Wolves who built the Target Center and eventually went broke themselves, and local politicians, the Gund Bros planned on moving the team to San Jose because they were willing to build a brand new arena for anyone willing to come. The Star Tribune and Channel 5 news did a poll at the end of that bad 89-90 season, asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said No, they didn't care.
Attendance was still a problem after the Northstars were saved. Therr was bump in attendance late in the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season because the team got hot in the 2nd half of the 90-91 season, going all the way to the finals AND a season ticket promo drive were if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. So the attendance figures for 91-92 are a little inflated because teams in the NHL back then survived pretty much on ticket sales, merchandise sales, and corporate sponsors. When a junk of you ticket sales are actually free, your not bring in all the money you should be.
With the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, being knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the season ticket promo coming to an end, some fans didn't want to pay for the that free 3rd ticket. Some fans dropped the 3rd ticket, some dropped all 3 tickets and attendance became an issue again.
With all of that and yes Norm's legal problems, and no local.ownership group willing to buy the team (not that Norm was going to sell them) the NHL was done trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move them to Dallas.
That Northstars book you mentioned tells a lot about what I said. You can also find some of this same info from the Northstars 90-91 season video Shooting Stars. It's on TH-cam
Thank you for making this. Wonderful
Was too young to know of the ongoings of why hockey teams were being moved. It's nice to see someone finally commit to telling the story of what happened to those of us who werent local or in t"he know" at the time. Wish more places like Atlanta and even the Jets went back and did deep dives like this. North Stars fans have sadly the same reaction to the team leaving as the A's fans did when Fisher took them away this past year.
Only problem is they left out the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support.
They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance.
The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons.
They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season.
But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again.
With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team.
Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans.
These are straight up FACTS!
Great documentary, very interesting, glad I watched it 😊
Yeah, this was a really good doc....I moved here in 1999, wasn't a rabid hockey fan. Never even saw a game in person until the Wild came to be. This was great.
Only problem is they left out the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support.
They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance.
The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons.
They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season.
But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again.
With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team.
Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans.
These are straight up FACTS.
Excellent doc.... From Detroit but it has never sat well with me what happened to the North Stars when I was a kid. One of the all time hockey hot beds of the US.
Excellent documentary!! I still find it hard to fully get into the Wild because I love the North Stars so much. All these years later and I'm still pissed they left. I have so many wonderful memories watching the games with family and friends. Ice fishing while listening to them on the radio, etc. Norm SUCKS!!!
One reason Norm moved the team was attendance, dead last in the NHL in 1989-90 in 1990-91 the Stanley Cup final season it was a near empty arena until toward the end of the season
Great documentary. What I think people forget is that the fans in Minnesota are as much to blame as norn green for the teams departure. Nobody was attending games in the late eighties and early nineties. They showed up for the cup run in 91, then the next year back to a half capacity building for home games. If I'm the owner, losing money I would have bounced as well.
The North Stars didn't give fans much reason to come to the Met in that era. They stunk. Even the year they made that Cup run, they had a horrible regular season record. They just happened to get hot during the playoffs.
@markminter6312 yep and the wild were horseshit last year, but they still sold out their home dates. So what's your point? Minnesota all of a sudden has more loyal fans?
@mikehanzal9562 Bad team, bad owner, bad arena. The North Stars should have moved to the Target Center. A lot easier to get fans to come out to see a bad team in a good arena with likable ownership.
Check the numbers on Hockey Reference. The numbers were greatly improved after the 91 Cup run.
@@mikehanzal9562ummmm the league now has revenue sharing. They didn’t back then. You can thank the Maple Leafs and Rangers franchise for keeping the Panthers and then Coyotes from folding due to attendance.
I think those original sweaters were FANTASTIC and saying the name "The Minnesota North Stars" has such a beautiful ring to it.
Of the many North Stars games I attended at the Met, the 2 that wiil always stick out in my memory were when Henry Boucha was attacked by Dave Forbes of the Boston Bruins and the last one they ever played against the Black Hawks.
Bill Masterton's death cast a pall over the North Stars first season. The North Stars were very enjoyable to watch when Gump joined them in 1969.
My dad and grandparents had season tickets for the Northstars first 19 seasons. My grandparents were at both the Bill Masterton game and the Boucha/Forbes game. My grandpa said both games were sickening.
@@donhuber9131Actually it was February 27, 1970 when Gump Worsley joined the North Stars
@@donhuber9131That first season they were one game from making the Stanley Cup Final it could have been the North Stars and not the Blues
@@michaelleroy9281 And one double overtime goal at that! That would have been an interesting series!Cesare Maniago would have been in the spotlight. Remember also...Danny Grant and Claude LaRose were on Montreal!
Very well done. Kudos to everyone involved.
What? Not once did they talk about every owner of the Northstars having to deal with horrible attendance from the fans!
They briefly glossed over the merger with the Cleveland Barons with Tom Reid's poliet "bags of air" analogy. It was actually Montreal Canadiens GM at the time Sam Pollock saying "if you have two bags of 💩 and put them together, you have only one bag of 💩". The local owners lost ownership of the Northstars to the owners of the Cleveland Barons because they were the 2 worst teams. So we lost our "local owners" because of lack of support from the fans. If the NHL hadn't done the merger the Northstars would have folded. So all this talk of well they didn't have a "local owner", well that the fans fault.
While the Gunds owned the team they started out good thanks to the merger and good draft picks. But starting in the mid 80s the team started going down hill in the standings and the fans started walking away, to the point where the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. That was before Norm showed up.
If it wasn't for the Blackhawks owner coming up with the plan to give a great deal for the Gunds the San Jose market with an expansion team and so.e Northstars players and prospects, while also keeping the Northstars in Minnesota, the Northstars would have moved to San Jose. And fans didn't care back then if they did. By the time the 89-90 season it sounded like they would move. The Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
And the fans stayed away from the Northstars when Norm took over the team. He was trying anything to get fans interested. The logo change was part of the NHL'S Vision of the 90s board that Norm was on. Those owners wanted new logos, colors, and uniform styles for NHL teams. That's why every team, except the original 6 had all changed colors or logos or both by the late 90s.
Finally it took a season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season & the 91-92 season you'd get 3rd ticket for free for both seasons, and the team playing better in the 2nd half of the season to get attendance numbers up to some level of respect. But with the poor play in the 91-92 season, being knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the free ticket promo ending, some people either dropped their 3rd ticket or dropped all their season tickets and attendance suffered again for the 92-93 season until the announcement of the move.
All of this was left out and yet everything I said can be found in the Lou Nanme Northstars Memories book, the Northstars video of the 90-91 season called Shooting Stars and the Dallas Stars 1999 Stanley Cup video. Speaking of that, if the team stayed in Minnesota they wouldn't have won the Cup in 99 because Texas oil tycoon Tom Hicks wouldn't have owned the teaam. So they wouldn't have been able to afford all the superstar talent that he brought in to the team.
Extra bonus. Go and find the video of I believe Channel 5 News' coverage of the implosion of the Met Center here on TH-cam. When you do watch it, pay close attention to Tom Reid being interviewed. He tells the reporter that he was just taking to original owner Walter Bush and said to Walter "Look at all these fans who came out to see this." Tom then tells the reporter Walter's reply. Walter said to Tom "Yeah, if all these fans had come to.our games, we'd still own the team and they'd still be here."
I STILL MISS the North Stars, BUT I MISS the Fighting Saints a little bit MORE! Because the Fighting Saints folded as a Minnesota team, rather than moving to a new city and new state, then eventually found success! Thank YOU Fox 9!💚💛💚💛
This documentary was awesome. So awesome, I want another. Do one on the Minnesota Twins at the Metropolitan Stadium.
Edit - When Norm Green dies, his grave stone should just read "You Suck".
No it wasn't awesome. It left out a very big problem that always plagued the Northstars: fan support.
They didn't say what led to the merger with the Cleveland Barons. It was that the Northstars original owners were on the verge of folding the team due to low attendance.
It left out how a handful of seasons after the merger, the team started going down hill in both the standings and in attendance figures. It got so bad that the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. DEAD LAST in ATTENDANCE!!!
With little help from fans and no help from the powers to be in the Cities (Sports Commission and the original T-Wolves and Target Center) the Gunds planned on moving the team to San Jose because they were going ahead with a plan to build a new arena for anyone willing to show up and play there. And it sure didn't seem like the people of the "State of Hockey" really cared. The Strib and Channel 5 News did a poll after that abysmal 89-90 season, asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
Nor didn't it show how, after the Blackhawks owner came up with the plan to save the Northstars, the fans said thank you to Howard Baldwin, Morris Belzberg, & Norm Green for saving them team. They thanked them buy not showing up to games at the start of the 90-91 season. The Northstars were in the cellar of the league in attendance and standings again.
Thanks to the hot 2nd half run that took the team all the way to finals AND a season ticket promo of if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you one more ticket for both seasons for free. Which kind of inflates the attendance figuers for the 91-92 season.
With the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season and the buy 2 get 1 free season ticket promo ended, many weren't willing to pay for that free 3rd ticket now, with some dropping the third ticket and some dropping all their tickets. So attendance was a problem again for the 92-93 season until Norm announced the move to Dallas.
Facts are the local fans were fair weather fans. Time and time again they almost lost the Northstars and then they finally did. They almost lost the Timberwolves when the original owners went broke in the mid-90s and the team was almost sold to a group from New Orleans who planned on moving he Wolves down there. The Twins were going to be contracted because attendance stunk in the 2nd half of the 90s. The little independent St Paul Saints baseball team were drawing more fans than the Twins.
All the people who like to say "Norm sucks" just need to look in a mirror and see who were the ones to really be blamed for the Northstars leaving town.
FACTS
@@danbratten3103 This is true - I remember seeing the "gold" hockey pucks Norm sent season ticket holders after the Cup run thanking them for their support during the start of the season when things were rough. Hell, the Wolves were talking about moving to New Orleans at the same time if not before the North Stars ever started talking about moving. Minnesota fans want a winner, like anywhere else, but the last half-dozen or so years of the North Stars the team was pretty much below average, and you hoped to sneak into the playoffs and go on a run. This kind of play wasn't bringing people out to the games. Having a row of suites wasn't going to change that. Had someone local bought the team from the Gunds, things likely would have ended differently. All this doesn't negate any fond memories of the team or the Met Center - I have 'em, too! But man, before that cup run, when the Wolves showed up, the only people talking North Stars were already playing hockey in a city league or at school, that's it. It became "out of mind" and then "out of sight"
Born,raised & still reside in Detroit i grew up watching the old Norris Division rivalries which included the North Stars, i loved watching games when the Wings played at The Met....i always knew where they were by those colored seats when i turned on the TV.
I buy my Red Wings shirts online these days and i only own one other NHL t shirt which i still have, that t shirt is the Minnesota North Stars with that beautiful logo...sorry North Star fans for your loss, for those of us outside your state who remember those days as your teams rivals we miss the North Stars too.
Two killers were Norm covering up the classic multi coloured seats at the Met and making them red and then changing the jerseys. Norm sat behind me and my buddy at the NHL All-Star game in LA in 2002 even though he had already sold the Stars. I wanted to go buy the biggest draft beer Staples Center sold and have a terrible “on purpose” accident.
No. Two killers were the fair-weather fans who mostly only showed up when the team was good. Most fans didn't support the Northstars when they were bad compared to how they support the Mild regardless how crappy they are.
Facts are the original owners almost folded the team due to poor attendance in the mid-late 70s. Hence the merger with equally troubled Cleveland Barons.
After the merger the Northstars were good for a while and fans showed up. But starting in the mid 80s the team went downhill and so did attendance. They never mentioned the fact that the Northstars finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. After that season it looked like the Gund Bros were moving the team to San Jose. The Strib and Channel 5 News did a poll after that horrible season asking fans if the cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% responded NO.
Thanks to the Blackhawks owner the Northstars were saved when Howard Baldwin, Morris Belzberg, and Norm Green bought the team. The fans thanked them by staying away most of the season.
Thanks to the run to the finals and a buy 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season and the 91-92 season you'd get a 3rd ticket for free promo attendance went up for that year. But with the team's poor play and the ticket promo ending attendance again suffered.
The 2nd killer was a group including the Sports Commision and the original owners of the T-Wolves, who made it basically impossible for the Northstars to move to the Target Center.
Just prove to the cops that it was indeed , just an accident
this video deserves way more likes than it has
Brotherhood 20+24!
Nick was honestly my favorite part of the whole doc. If you were gonna get the Everyman perspective on the whole thing, they couldn’t have gotten a better person for it!
Brotherhood!
Brotherhood!
Still a Blues fan from South St. Louis County Missouri, but the North Stars were fun to watch playing the Blues......the fights
The North Stars were one goal away from going to the Stanley Cup Final the 1st year of expansion. And they blew the series lead to the Blues.
That series went the full 7 games and the Northstars were only able to play 2 games at the Met instead of 3. Earlier the owners scheduled the Ice Follies to come perform at the Met. They didn't think the Northstars would get that far in the playoffs. Oops.
@@danbratten3103Ron Schock won that game 7 in 1967-68 in double overtime, one game away from the Stanley Cup Final
Speaking of the Blues, they were close moving to Saskatoon, they had a near relocation drama
Glad got the stars one of my favorite teams since relocation
Great documentary!
To this day Minnesota still never forgive Norm Green for the shocking relocation of the North Stars.
Walt Diedzic, father of Gopher Hockey Joe Diezac, did not to to keep them here. Even Minnesota politicians were like let them go.
You seem to be forgetting the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support.
They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance.
The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons.
They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season.
But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again.
With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team.
Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans.
These are straight up FACTS.
Blame Norm all you want, attendance was the deal dead last in 1989-90 damn near empty arena for most of 1990-91
Many many memories as a kid of not only the Stars but tailgating with KQ out there blasting music on car speakers, concerts, the Twins and Vikings next door...so bummed and pissed when they left. NORM GREED STILL SUCKS
Felt like someone died when they left, would been amazing to see Mike Modano and Brett Hull in a North Stars jersey together.
Also… Norm Sucks!
Yup and Norm thinks your state (Minn) sucks because your state refused to support the North Stars therefore Norm had no choice to bolt for greener pastures (Dallas).
You realize that Brett Hull would have never worn a Northstars jersey, right?
Thomas Hicks owned the Stars when they signed Hull and those other great players they had. Hicks was a Texas oil tycoon who also owned the Texas Rangers. He would not have bought the Northstars if they weren't in Texas.
So, no move to Dallas no Hicks buying the team. No Hicks as owner means no Hull and the others, except Modano and maybe Zubov. No Hull and company means no Stanley Cup.
So it wasn't Minnesota's Cup.
@ EXACTLY! Had Stars stayed in Minn market they wouldn’t of had the funds to increase roster’s talent. In Dallas the revenue basically tripled overnight compared to this so-called State of Hockey in media, advertising & ticket price revenue.
@@LamantBradfprd-k2n yup. A lot of these "fans" up here also like to forget how the team finished DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season, before Norm Green showed up. The support was so bad the owners at the time were about to move the Northstars to San Jose. There was even a poll taken by the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News after that 89-90 season asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care. They don't like to talk about that part of the history of the team.
Nor do they like to talk about why the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about ready to fold the Northstars due to poor attendance back in the late 70s. But yeah, they don't like to talk about that either
The "State of Hockey". The only state to lose their NHL team because they cared more about college and high school hockey more than their pro team..
I was a North Stars fan going back to their first season when I was in grade school. After the move I completely cut the cord with the team, even rooting for Buffalo to beat the tar out of the Stars in the Stanley Cup Final. The disgust lingers to this day.
The North Stars were one goal away from going to the Cup final in that first year. Wayne Connoly was the first expansion player to score over 30 goals. When Gump showed up in 1969, the North Stars were even more fun to watch!
@@donhuber9131 I remember listening to the great North Stars-Blues semifinal series on a small transistor radio in that first season. The East-West Division setup was ridiculous with the Original Six (East) teams up against the expansion (West) teams. Made for a lopsided Cup Final.
Saw my first game in person on March 1, 1970. The North Stars pounded the Maple Leafs 8-0. It went into the record book as the worst defeat a West team handed an East team.
@@donhuber9131and that series went a full 7 games and the Northstars only got to play 2 games at the Met because the Northstars owners scheduled the ice follies to come to the Met way earlier. Oops.
My dad and my grandfather had season tickets the first 19 seasons. I loved going to the Met as kid back then.
@@danbratten3103I would say poor scheduling they didn't expect that series with the Blues to go 7 games or the North Stars to go that far in the playoffs
Is that Dan Gladden at 25:09?
And Jack Morris walking right behind him. Good catch!
KMSP "Receptive Channel 9" was TV home of the Minnesota North Stars from 1979-1993 (with the exception of a few seasons in between).
At the 25 minute mark, it reminded me of how me a few others got into a game when a side door was open. We had tickets but no desire to wait in line in 0 degree weather. An employee saw us but kind of shrugged his shoulders figuring we were just trying to escape the cold.
All I remember is empty seats at the Met Centre every time I watched a broadcast as a Canadian in the 80s, thing was, the team at the time was strong and talented, never did dig for info as to why there was no fan support, it was fun when Ciccarelli and Co. visited Edmonton Coliseum so I was doubly surprised when they got a rare second chance with the Wild. Be grateful Minnesota, an NHL franchise is better than none, look at Quebec City. Good to see the Wild become a contending team as a hockey fan.
they could of won cup in 1981 but ran into the greatest hockey team ever assembled
I like to joke that Northstars gave my family the run to the finals in 81 as gift for me being born in March of 81. My family had season tickets their first 19 seasons.
Those white home jerseys that they wore in 81 against the Islanders (Sue Nelson) is wearing it, is my favorite of all their different jerseys they wore.
@@danbratten3103That was the end of that jersey after that final, for 1981-82 they added a touch of black and on the green jerseys in 1988-89
Montreal Canadiens from 1976 -79 were the greatest team ever to play the game they also won 4 Stanley Cups in a row
Good to see both the Wild and the Stars being very good teams right now.
So watching this in New England as a near GenZer, I feel like I'm missing a couple pieces...
Norm couldn't handle himself around women, might've been struggling financially in the early 90s, and you played in a building without luxury suites (which was decently common in the early 90s).
The documentary teased the Stanley Cup run against the Penguins while also teasing about how (in the mid 80s?) the North Stars were not even selling out half the building.
I appreciate the interviews and interviewees, but I was hoping 30 years after for a better answer to, "How did the state of MN lose pro hockey?" than "Norm Greed sucks"...
That's because the FACTS point the blame to the local fair weather fans, the T-Wolves owners, and the local politicians.
They glossed over the merger with the Cleveland Barons and their owners, the Gund Bros., not mentioning the original (and local) owners were on the verge of folding the team due to poor attendance. So with the merger the local owners were out and the Gund Bros now owned the team.
After the brief success of the early 80s the team started going down hill in the standings and the attendance dropped with it. Attendance got so bad that the team finished DEAD LAST in attendance in 89-90. The season before Norm Green bought the team. In fact the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll after that season because it sounded like the Gund Bros were moving the team to San Jose. The poll asked fans if they cared if the Northstars left Minnesota? 60% said NO, they didn't care. If not for the Blackhawks owner coming up with a way to give the Gunds a great deal in San Jose with an expansion team and keeping the Northstars in Minnesota, the team would have moved then. Lots of local fans forget that part.
After Green bought the team attendance still stunk as the team also was performing poorly trying to get used to a new head coach, new GM, and new owners. The team eventually did a season ticket drive were if you bought two season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season, you'd get a 3rd ticket for free for both seasons. With that and the team starting to play better, attendance started to increase BUT it took all season and that amazing run to the finals in 91.
After playing poorly for the 91-92 season, being knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the free ticket option ending, many either dropped the 3rd ticket that had been free, or they dropped all their season tickets and attendance was poor for the last season until the announcement of the move.
Also, the Met Center did have a handful of suites. The Sports Commision never put a penny into that place even though they owned it. The Gund Bros put a few in with their own money in the 80s after the Sports Commision refused to help financially. Norm Green added a few more and spent $20 million of his own money renovating the Met, even though he didn't own it.
The Met was one of the best arenas in the. NHL by standards of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. And luxury suites weren't the most important thing, because Norm moved the team to Reunion Arena in Dallas and it had zero suites.
"And now you know the rest of the story" - Paul Harvey
(Google Paul Harvey if you don't get this)
Dead last in attendance in 1989-90, empty arena for most of 1990-91
I was a Boston hockey player kid in the 1960's and 70's, and I liked the Minnesota North stars, even though I'm a Boston bruins guy, to me they were the Minnesota hockey mecca, next to my town of Boston, Minnesota is an equal as far as hockey fans and local hockey players. 🏒🇺🇸
Getting Tommy Williams from the Bruins helped the North Stars.
@@donhuber9131 They traded him only 2 years later to the California Golden Seals
@@michaelleroy9281 Thanks for the info!
Non-Minnesotans never understand why I still dislike Norm Green, and why it still hurts that the North Stars left. I love the Wild, but it almost feels like getting married to someone else after the love of your life left the state.
Hockey is a business. He made the right business decision.
The BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support.
They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance.
The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons.
They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season.
But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again.
With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team.
Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans.
These are straight up FACTS.
I remember watching the north stars with my grandfather! NHL is the best sport to c live!
Ruff memories.. new one's being made this year
I wonder if the Mall of America has ever considered building a midsize hockey arena on the site of the old Met… could host high school and college games potentially
Lou Nanne tried keeping the Met Center up and running for that exact reason. He said it could have hosted tournaments for a variety of sports, regardless of age level. Hell, Russia played it National Cahmpionship tournament at the Met during December of 1993 because of upheaval going in Russia. Lou said it also could have hosted concerts like it had before and conventions.
But the stupid local politicians wanted it gone because they needed Target Center to be successful.
I'm 42 , love the Wild and still miss the North Stars and I still wish bad things on norm green.... The politicians and civic leaders who let them go aren't highly thought of either.
How did they work the seating arrangements with different colored seats in the bowl.?
Everyone out here blaming Norm Green, but it seems like a big part of this was fans not showing up to games. The state of hockey should always sell out games no matter how bad the team is.
Nobody has that in mind, it's just Norm Sucks and after 31 years that is old news
Norm Green be like "Why does everyone in Minnesota hate me? All I did was take their hockey team & move them to Texas, just because I didn't get what I wanted".
Wish i was old enough to have seen a game at The Met, unfortunately being born in 1999 they were long gone.
My mom says it was like entering the gates of heaven. All I've ever know is the X, but in 2020-21 when the wild started honoring the North Stars with the reverse retro throwbacks, that have gradually evolved into the 78's alternate jersey, it just feels right.
They were worn more years than just 1978 ,all the way to 1991
@@michaelleroy9281 The Wild named their alternate jerseys "The 78's"
The Met was a dump in the mid to late 80’s.
Norm renovated some of it himself!
Does heaven get renovated??
@@randyschmidt5137 well Bobby Orr would disagree with you. The Hall of Famer and debatable greatest hockey player ever, said the Met Center was the best arena in the NHL when he played from 1967-1978ish.
And no one in my family thought is was dump while we lived their and had season tickets.
Compared to the other expansion teams of 67 and the Original 6 teams arenas, the Met Center was the best arena.
If it wasn't for the Met the NHL wouldn't have come to Minnesota because all the arenas back then were dumps.
I was at the last game against the Blackhawks, I ripped the armrest off my seat for a keepsake, still have the ticket stub tacked to it. We would buy student tickets for like $10!
Bruh, I was fairly young at the time, like 12. Went to a ton of games. Was in tears for months when they left. As a child I had no idea why they were leaving me. I've been to Wild games. It's ok. I just feel the Northstars logo, colors, and the atmosphere of the ol Met Center was leaps and bounds better than the wild. Xcel Center is in a city which also sucks. No tailgating and what not. It's just not the same for me at least. Maybe if they get to a cup it will be different. The Craziest moment for me at a Northstar game was when Todd Elik took a puck to the ol facehole behind the net. Man, the blood stain on the ice for the rest of the game was disturbing. Will never forget that day. He was ok after about a thousand stitches.
I miss them so much!
When Lou Nanne came to town the very first time they had him f8ill out a standard job application at the North Stars office. He and other players sold printing in the summer to make money. The team failed for two reasons. Minnesotans want to call teams their own but don't understand they are businesses not teddy bears to hug and love. Norm Green was an ego that targeted women beholden to him. Dino Ciccarelli's mess didn't help the North Stars image either. Minnesotans want to believe that the teams belong to them and are extensions of their identity and culture. For God's sake, the Vikings used to have the St. Louis Park Parkettes as their dance and cheer squad. When the Twin Cities hosted the super bowl they had "snowflakes" dancing on the field at the half time show. Too many people in Minnesota think they know lots about pro sports and they don't really know anything. Minnesota owes Bill Masterson a debt of gratitude for his sacrifice to the team and state.
You are right. But the biggest issue was the fans not supporting the team like they should have. Every owner the Northstars had were plagued by attendance issues. Something conveniently left out here.
@@danbratten3103 The Wild don't seem to be having those issues.
@@ACWings_U8TNever have had that issue since 2000 when they began
Geez, 8 minutes in and it's just a bunch of sour grapes!
You let it happen, so look in the mirror then move on.
North Stars - Blackhawks in the 1980s was the fiercest , meanest rivalry I've seen. In any sport.
The games at the Stadium in Chicago were absolute wars.....
"Dino s*cks , Dino s*cks" and "Ca-sey...Ca-sey" lol.
Good times
Yet neither team made it out of the second round after either team beat each other
As a Hartford Whalers fan growing up (I'm from CT), I completely feel for the NorthStars fans for what they went through ..... Thankfully, they got the Wild 7 seasons later .. CT got the Ranger's AHL team!
It was 7 years later however some die hard hockey fans could have passed away between 1993 to 2000
Life long Northstars fan here:
What an absolute joke. Not once in this whole story was mentioned the biggest problem facing the Northstars: The fair weather fans of the Twin Cities. Not mentiond once. Let's not kid ourselves, when the Northstars weren't playing well, the Met was not full like the X has been, no matter how bad the Mild are.
You all pout that an outsider took the team away. Well, if the people of the State of Hockey really cared, Norm would have never gotten the team.
The team's original owners were all from the Twin Cities. They almost folded the team in the late 70s because of such crappy attendance. So, in order to keep the team, the league merged with the Cleveland Barons, and the Barons owners got the Northstars. The GM of the Montreal Canadiens used a bit more vulgar language than Tom Reid's "bags of air" lol.
Thanks to the merger and a couple of good draft picks, the team got good again, and the fans came back........for a while. Bad draft picks, bad trades, bad coaches hired (that's all on you, Lou), and the team dropped in the standings, and they dropped in attendance again. The year before Norm showed up, the Northstars finished dead last in attendance. DEAD LAST!!! You couldn't draw more fans than Quebec City or Hartford?!? The only two things that helped attendance again was the buy 2 get 1 free season ticket drive for the remainder of that season and the next season (91-92. 2nd to last season) and the team getting hot and going on the run to the finals. After that, attendance dropped again.
When the Met was blown up, Tom Reid said on television how he said to original owner Walter Bush, "Look how many people came to see this." And Walter said,"Yeah, if all these people had come to our games, we'd still own the team, and they'd still be here."
So most of the blame goes to all those fans who didn’t show up. You also almost lost the Twins to contraction because they were drawing less fans than the little St. Paul Saints were in the late 90s. You almost lost the Timberwolves after the original owners went broke building the Target Center and the Metropolitan Sports Commission taking ownership of that (that will sound familiar soon).
Blame also goes to the Metropolitan Sports Commission. They fleeced ownership of the Met from the original Northstars owners who had it built and then refused to maintain the place. Norm Green spent $20 million of his own money renovating that place. You don't do that if you are thinking of leaving town. Which leads to the logo change.
Don't get me wrong, I will always love the N* logo. I have at least one of every kind of jersey they wore with that logo and two prototypes they never used, but that new logo was on the ice in the neutral zone, and on the boards the year they went to the finals. That was the first year Norm owned them. Norm was on the NHL's Vision of the 90s board. The owners on that board wanted new looking logos and colors and jersey styles for their teams. Every team besides the original 6 teams either changed their logos, or colors or both in the 90s because the 2 best selling jerseys were the LA Kings, who dropped their old logo and purple and gold colors when they signed Gretzky, and the San Jose Sharks with their edgy logo. Besides, you don't need to change your name and logo before moving a team. Just ask the Carolina Hurricanes, the Colorado Avalanche, and the New Jersey Devils. These teams had different names, logos, and colors right up until they moved to their current cities.
I didn't blame the Metropolitan Sports Commission enough earlier. Bill Lester and his stooges did nothing to help the Northstars. After the Northstars were gone, the Winnipeg Jets were going to move to Minneapolis and to Target Center. Heck, they even hired former Northstars great Bobby Smith to be the GM going into MN. The Sports Commision and the Timberwolves and Target Center planned on trying to screw the Jets over the same way they wanted to screw over the Northstars. So the Jets said to hell with that and moved to Phoenix instead.
So all those fans who say "Norm Green Sucks". No, you suck. Over and over, you didn't support the team. Original owners almost folding the team and the Gunds almost moving them to San Jose. By the way, Channel 5 News and the Strib did a poll at the end of the 89-90 season asking fans if they would care if the team moves to San Jose, and 60% said "NO." By 93, the NHL had enough and let Norm move the team.
Oh, and that Cup the Stars won in 99 would not have happened in Minnesota because Tom Hicks owned the team by then and dumped a bunch of money into that team. So it isn't "your Cup". There were only 3 Northstars on that Dallas team in 99: Modano, Derian Hatcher, and Shawn Chambers (I have a game worn jersey of his) and he wasn't with the Northstars their last 2 years. The Mild will never win the Stanley Cup. And that is a curse for not suppprting the Northstars like you should have. State of Hockey? Yeah right. The only state to lose an NHL team because the locals cared more about high school hockey and college hockey than their NHL team.
Don't get me wrong. I'm still mad Norm moved the team, but in regards to who gets the blame, he's a distant 3rd to the local fans and the Metropolitan Sports Commission.
But it was nice seeing Sue Nelson and hearing her play the organ again. I went to the same church as her. She even played the organ at my parents' wedding.
Are we Twins???? I been telling sour “North Stars Fans” the attendance and Sports Commission issues for years!
You and I get it! The Wild marketing trying to turn the team into the North Stars is embarrassing. I’m not a fan of the Wild as I immediately adopted another pro team (not the Stars).
The laugher is a 30 year old saying Norm Green sucks, and they were not even born when the team moved! Bitter fans passing the anger down and not embracing their team comes off…well…not State of Hockey.
The true unconditionally supported Minnesota Hockey team is:
Minnesota Golden Gophers
@randyschmidt5137 BROTHER!!!! 😃 LOL 🤣
You nailed it! Especially at the end about the Gophers. In Sports Illustrated's article about the North Stars moving, a "fan" said, "You could pay $10 & watch the Gophers win, or pay $20 and watch the Northstars lose." That's sums up a lot of those people.
When pro hockey came back to MN and we as fans and citizens were able to vote for the team name, I voted for Minnesota Northern Lights because I thought it was the best choice and 2, we could've gone back to the N jerseys. I was disappointed in my fellow Minnesotans in choosing the Wild at the time.
Dallas has become a great NHL market. Just like Washington D.C. metro area, where the Capitals took a lot of years to help it become one as well. My perspective as a Chicago Blackhawks fan since 1974, who has lived in both areas. Dallas had pro hockey earlier with Chicago's farm team of the Central Hockey League. They existed from 1967-82.
The North Stars were the final chip in the Walker trade. Thanks, Minny!!
I was 11. Held up a sign at the Met that said "Norm Green is Mean!" Mostly because my mom wouldn't let me put "Norm Green Sucks!" on it. Broke my heart when they left.
As much as it sucked for Minnesota North Star fans to watch the Dallas Stars wiin the Stanley Cup & Minnesota being known as the hockey state as well as being well known for having good “NCAA” hockey teams it shocked me when Minnesota folded. It really sucked when the Quebec Nordiques folded & moved to Colorado & in Colorado’s first NHL season they win the Stanley Cup :-/ talk about a kick to the nuts eh lol. I grew up in a small town in Canada called “St.Marys,Ontario,Canada” & my childhood hero from St.Marys was #20 Mike Craig who is six years older than me & was on that Minnesota North Stars team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals vs Pittsburgh to lose but we were all very proud of Mike Craig & he was still on that Minnesota team when they moved to Dallas.
I miss those beautiful North Stars jerseys. Just like the Nordiques and the Whalers.
Beautiful jerseys don't forget the Blackhawks reds the best ever
I have at least 1 of every kind they wore, including the crooked N ones they wore for their first preseason only, and two prototypes they didn't use (not the one Mark shows in this video), and a game worn one. My personal favorite is the white one Sue Nelson is wearing in this documentary, that the team wore at home from 79-81.
Incidently, I went to same church as Sue when I was a kid up there. She played the organ at my parents wedding.......a long time ago.
Great documentary Fox 9. Thank you for this. Norm Green still sucks.
Great documentary! As a Calgarian, sorry for Norman Green (he sucks)
YYC 😇
Only problem is the left out the BIGGEST reason why the team moved to Dallas: Poor fan support.
They didn't really get into WHY the Northstars merged with the Cleveland Barons. The original owners were about to fold the team because of poor attendance.
The merger saved the team, but the local owners gave up ownership to the Gund Bros, owners of the Cleveland Barons.
They also didn't talk about the dwindling attendance in the mid-late 80s. The team went downhill hill those years and so did fan attendance. The 89-90 season saw the Northstars finish DEAD LAST in attendance. With little fan support and none form the Sports Commision, the original T-Wolves owners who built the Target Center, the Gund Bros made plans to move the team to San Jose. After the 89-90 season the Star Tribune and Channel 5 News did a poll asking fans if they cared if the Northstars moved to San Jose? 60% said NO they didn't care.
With the team saved from moving to San Jose, the fans thanked them new owners, including Norm Green, by not coming to games at the start of the 90-91 season. Thanks to the team getting hot in the 2nd half of that season and going to the finals, AND season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of the 90-91 season AND for the 91-92 season the team would give you 1 more free. That boosted attendance late in the 90-91 season and for the 91-92 season.
But with the team playing poorly for the 91-92 season, getting bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, and the ticket promo ending many fans either dropped the 3rd free ticket instead of paying for ir or they dropped all three season tickets. And attendance suffered again.
With all the problems going on, the NHL gave up on trying to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let Norm move the team.
Now you have heard the other half of the story. The one that puts all the blame on those who bear the most of the blame for the Northstars leaving: the fans who didn’t support the Northstars like they would later with the Mild. The original owners of the T-Wolves and Target Center for not giving the Northstars a way move to the Target Center. Incidently those two guys ended up going broke and losing the Wolves and the Target Center. Blame also definitely goes to Bill Lester and his stooges in the Metropolitan Sports Commission who fleeced ownership of the Met Center from the original who built it and then never putting a penny into it; making the Gunds pay for their own renovations and Norm Green as well when he owned the team. In fact Norm spent $20 million of his own money trying to make the place better for the fans.
These are straight up FACTS.
@@danbratten3103You can look this up, the North Stars averaged 13, 000 a game in their final 2 seasons, it was Norm Green who said that's not enough
Wasn't there a neon light of the owners' names at the Met Center? For the life of me, I can't remember if it was for the Gunds or Norm Green since I was too young to know who any of these guys were, but I vividly recall the sign being turned off after it was announced somebody was leaving and I think it was KSTP's Joe Schmit who reported on it for the 10 o'clock news that night.
Team wouldn’t have moved if they sold more tickets
Having been born in 1990 I have no memory of the North Stars but there is no doubt that if we ever win a Stanley Cup with the Wild it will certainly be dedicated the North Star fans. I for one have a North Star jersey out of respect to the past and for how f-ing cool the dang thing is especially compared to the "man-bear-pigs" as Nick would say. Nothing against the Wild logo but love that North Star logo. Go Wild and go North Stars!
I met Norm at a game was very nice to me, but get the anger at them leaving, if the Blues left St. Louis I would be up
"man-bear-pigs" love it. That describes that logo perfectly.
My grandfather and my dad had Northstars season tickets for the first 19 seasons. I like to joke that the team gave my family a gift for my birth when a couple months after I was born they made it to the finals for the first time in 1981. I got all their jerseys and memorabilia. I still haven't gone to a Wild game or been to the X. Probably never will.
Lived it. Of course it sucks that the Dallas Stars have had lots of success and even this past week - Stars have beaten the MN Wild 7 times in a row. Hopefully the WILD will win a CUP before I am too old to enjoy. I think they will....
Wild trying to wear North Star gear on the Stars is bad juju
North Stars were top 5 in the league after christmas 1990. They were not a team to be messed with, just didnt show up during the first half
The Penguins and Mario Lemieux sure messed with them in the Stanley Cup Final
@@michaelleroy9281 I think it was a lot closer than many people remember, the only game that wasnt close was #6, the others were all nail biters pretty much
The fans didn't show the first half either. They also didn't show up the season before. The 89-90 season the North Stars finished DEAD LAST in attendance. The Gunds almost moved the team to San Jose because of horrible attendance. The original owners almost folded the team due to poor attendance in the late 70s. But I digress. Lol
@@jaycob1830game 4 at the Met had the Penguons score 3 goals inside of the first 3 minutes of the game. The Northstars clawed back to within one. Sadly Neal Broten had 3 great opportunities to tie the game in the 3rd but missed/robbed on all 3 chances. Penguins score an empty netter and win 5-3.
Game 5 in Pittsburgh the Penguins score the first 4 goals in the first 13 minutes of the game and the Northstars spend the rest of the game trying to catch up, ultimately losing 6-4.
Casey lost his magic in goal and the power play short circuited in the finals.
@@danbratten3103 yes ive watched this finals like 30 times im well aware of how the games played out
Interesting video
Bill Lester and company didn’t do us any favors. Norm and Bill……bad chemistry and we lost our team because of them
We almost lost them before Norm even showed up! The Gund Bros were going to move the team to San Jose because attendance kept dwindling in the late 80s to the point of the Northstars finishing DEAD LAST in attendance for the 89-90 season. The Gunds were going to move the team to San Jose after that season. And Bill Lester and his stooges and the T-Wolves owners were screwing over the Gunds before Norm was around. And then they tried screwing over the Winnipeg Jets when they WANTED to move to Minneapolis and the Target Center. But with the same crap deals the Gunds and later Norm got, the Jets owner said to heck with that and moved to Phoenix instead (also left out of this).
We also almost lost the team in the late 70s when the original (local) owners almost folded the team due to horrible attendance (thanks St Paul and the BOTH versions of the WHA Fighting Saints).
Fair-weather fans cost us the Northstars due to poor attendance problems over many years with all the different owners. Just like how we almost lost the Twins to contraction due to terrible attendance in the second half of the 90s. Just like we almost lost the Timberwolves after only a handful of years because the original owners went broke.
We lost the Northstars because of the stupid politicians, especially the Sports Commision fleecing ownership of the Met Center from the original owners who had it built. They wouldn't put a penny into the Met. The Gunds pur some suites in and so did Norm Green when he spent $20 million of his own money renovating the Met. No one spends $20 million on a rink they don't own if they don't want to be there and are planning on moving.
Yes, Norm had his issues, and he made the ultimate decision to move the team. But all these people pointing the finger at Norm blaming him have three fingers pointing back at them. They are the ones to really blame.
Sad that back in the day Cliffs, US Steel or ArcelorMettal did not step up!
Never were, never will be a Stanley cup team here in MN. Get over it.
Maybe Norm moving the team from Atlanta to Calgary was a sign that everyone got played. So i get why you wouldn’t bring that up.
Norm Green was not the owner of the Flames when they moved to Calgary
@@michaelleroy9281he was not the majority owner but he was part of the ownership group.
But the Flames, like the Northstars, were suffering from horrible fan support with terrible attendance. Hell, they finished DEAD LAST in attendance the season before Norm bought the team.
@@danbratten3103Not until the team was already in Calgary he was part of 6 man ownership group, Tom Cousins was the owner in Atlanta, sold the team to Nelson Skalbania, who later sold the team to the 6 men
@@danbratten3103The Flames were dead last in attendance in the NHL in their first 2 seasons because the team was playing out of the Stampede Corral with a capacity of 6,400 while the Olympic Saddledome (capacity 19,000) was under construction. Needless to say, they sold out the joint during those initial seasons.
Outstanding documentary...to this day is still hate the name wild and their colors...the NHL should do whats right and help us get the name and colors back from dallas. I sit here staring at my 1990-1991 northstars stanley cup pennant at this moment.
I had to delete what I really wanted to say.
1000% that cup in Dallas was was ours.
This whole situation was garbage, Bill Lester is a snake who sold us out, Norm Green still sucks and if I ever run into those Dallsa fans that said "Thank you Minnesota" I'll probably be in jail for punching them square in the chops.
Same with Lester come to think of it.
I always thought that Gordon Gund looked like Lon Cheney's Phantom of the Opera.
I was there when the Met came down. It was a sad moment.
I liked North Start when they were here in Mn plus they play whole lot better then Wild. That's my opinion
I've lived in Raleigh for 30 years, and I can assure you: there ain't no Snowbirds here.
Eastern Canada lost two teams that had great fans: the Expos in baseball and the Nordiques in hockey. Atlanta lost its franchises twice. Winnipeg and Minnesota lost it once, only to get another one later. There are many other examples. The system of franchises that can be bought and moved is totally horrible for fans. Do the professional leagues think about it? I don't think so. As a legal person, she has no empathy. I am far from Minnesota, but I remember that the North Stars were a good organization. It was indeed incomprehensible, because the cradles of American hockey were at the time in Boston and Minnesota. We saw later what the NHL was concerned about: expansion into regions that did not know the sport, but which were a big market.
Crap attendance for years put this in motion.
Just like Denver, they had a team that moved and got another one although it was MANY years later
All these fans must have been disguised as yellow, brown, green and white seats. 91 has inaccurately skewed the memory of the Stars place in the community after Dino left. Other than a couple Basil McCrae scraps and Modano getting smoked by Kordic, there wasn't much meat on the bone in those latter years.
Reflecting back now from when this happened when I was a teenager, the worst thing was that Dallas did not change the name. They should have named their team to something texas related, because the North Stars had one of the coolest logos and colors and when Hockey did finally come back the idiots in charge named the team one of the stupidest names in the history of sports.
You'll have to take that up with Gary Bettman, writing about it here isn't going to do a thing
I arrived in the Cities in the Fall of 1992. I saw Gretzky play his last game at Met Center in the Spring of '93- what a great barn!! I still remember the shock when the headline read "My Stars- They're Gone!". It just did not seem possible. It still doesn't. I left years ago and am glad they got a team back, but I just don't see how a rebuilt St. Paul Civic Center holds a candle to the Met- to say nothing of all that history. So the Devil with Norm Green. He still sucks, and will always will. And here's to Gary Bettman for putting hockey where it never should have been, for taking it out of Quebec and Minnesota, and for other sins not yet revealed. I'm sure they exist. Go Wild! (I guess...)
1.) The Wild don't play at the Civic Center, and the Xcel is one of the best buildings in the league and has served as an inspiration for almost every hockey arena built since.
2.) Gary Bettman wasn't the commissioner when the Stars moved and has been quoted as saying he "would never have let the NHL leave Minnesota"
I remember that game Wayne Gretzky and the Kings in his last game at Met it was a 10-5 rout
I get why a lot of Minnesota hockey fans were very upset about this it’s almost like taking away the habs or leafs away from hockey, pretty much Minnesota is the state of hockey for USA
The fans weren't very supportive. The original owners almost folded the team in the late 70's due to horrible attendance. The merger with Cleveland saved the team, but it meant the local owners sold the team to the Cleveland owners, the Gund Bros.
The merger helped the team in the early 80s and the fans came back. But bad trades, draft picks, and coaches hired, had the team doing poorly by the late 80s and attendance plummeted again. They finished dead last in attendance in 89-90. That was the last year the Gund Bros owned the team and they were going to move them to San Jose. The Blackhawks owner came up with a way to keep the Northstars in Minnesota and let the Gunds have a team in San Jose. The next season (90-91) so fans stayed away for most of the season until the team came up with a season ticket promo where if you bought 2 season tickets for the remainder of that season and the next season (91-92) you would get a 3rd for free, and the team started playing better.
After the 91-92 season ended in the first round of the playoffs that free extra ticket promo ended. Most fans either dropped the 3rd ticket that had been free or dropped all of them entirely. So their last season, attendance was an issue.
Are you seeing a familiar problem happening?
Yes, there were other factors: the Sporst Commission, the T-Wolves owners at Target Center, local politicians, BUT the biggest issue was fan attendance and the lack of it, plaguing every owner of the team.
The hockey team with biggest support has always been the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's team. Followed by high school hockey. The fans cared more about them than the Northstars.
True, kids who serious about youth hockey when you’re under 18 likely don’t have money or own vehicle to attend North Star games and the PARENTS only cared about hockey if their kid was on the Pee Wee team or varsity team, etc., but these Minnesota parents didn’t give hoot about North Stars or NHL! Why? Their kid was not on the team. Here where else a Minnesotan will NEVER believe me. When I grew up in Western Wisconsin more locals talked about, watched or listened to North Stars than Minnesota towns. How do I know? I lived in Wisconsin when North Stars played in 1981 Cup Finals and lived in Minnesota when North Stars played in 1991 Cup Finals. The interest & enthusiasm a lot less in the Minnesota towns. For every Minnesotan that brought up the 1991 North Stars in Wisconsin the ratio of hockey talk and North Stars 5 times more, evidence that Wisconsin cared more about the North Stars than those in their own state (Minn) and that Minnesota is more about youth or college hockey.
Norm Still Sucks
The truth is Minnesota statewide SUCKED for their support of the North Stars or interest in the NHL.
If not for Wisconsin which was at least 15% of the ticket buyers the North Stars would have folded long before 1993!
I grew up in a Western Wisconsin town where my bankers North Star season-ticket holders including the Club Room & free parking etc.
Then when I moved to a Minnesota town the support not nearly the same as no banks had North Stars season tickets and this Minnesota town not only bigger than the Wisconsin town but 20 MINUTES CLOSER TO THE MET. I also knew of no one in this Minnesota town that were North Stars season ticket holders but knew of 4 parties that were North Stars season ticket holders in my old Wisconsin town.
@LamantBradfprd-k2n sounds like Norm Propaganda to me!
@@LamantBradfprd-k2n1978 was the year they could have folded
Very good
Should be Stars/Wild every year on Hockey Day Minnesota. Former Minnesota team vs current Minnesota team.
Tell that to Gary Bettman
Guaranteed if the (original) Winnipeg Jets had ended up in Minnesota that franchise would still be there right now and not in Utah.
Only if the Metropolitan Sports Commission, the original owners of Timberwolves, and the fans learned their lessons. The fans did, but the Commission and the T-Wolves didn't.
Thank goodness that Commission had no say in anything involved with the Xcel Center.
Great show! Norm Greed sucks!
Blame Norm all you want, nobody showed up for the games , dead last in attendance in 1989-90
@ Truth
As a 60 yr old native Minnesotan, I say this………. Norm Sucks
Corporate greed destroyed my beloved North Stars.
As a St. Louis Blues fan I can confidently say that Norm sucks!
How would you have felt if the team could have moved to Saskatoon in the 80s
@michaelleroy9281 wasn't alive then, but experienced it with the Rams. It is the worst thing in sports.
Damn I miss the North Stars.
I had to delete what I really wanted to say.
Thanks for ripping thst scab wide open.
Thought I was over it but not anymore.
1000% that cup in Dallas was was ours.
This whole situation was garbage, Bill Lester is a snake who sold us out, Norm Green still sucks, North Star fans were sold out for $32 million in today's dollars,
Thank God, for Norm Coleman,
and if I ever run into those Dallas fans that said "Thank you Minnesota Go Stars" I'll probably be in jail for punching them square in the chops.
Same with Lester come to think of it.
But hey, Bill, it's personal not business.
There was no way that 99 Cup would have been won in Minnesota. Oil tycoon Tom Hicks owned the Stars then and dumped a bunch of money into the Stars by bringing in Ed Belfour, Sergi Zubov, Brett Hull and others. Hicks would not have owned the Northstars if they were in Minnesota. So all those key players mentioned above wouldn't have been there.
Hypothetically if the Northstars were still in Minnesota in 99, they'd still be struggling with horrible attendance like they did in the past. Don't believe me? Just look at how bad attendance was for the almost contracted Twins in the late 90s. The independent St. Paul Saints were drawing more fans than the Twins..
Ah yes the start of the Minnesota curse for our professional teams.