The Minnesota Wild Hockey Club opened their inaugural season in the fall of 2000. Minnesota was granted a new NHL franchise and they began play some 6 1/2 years after the Minnesota North Stars left for Texas. (See "Minnesota North Stars" post for details).
I had been at many of the franchise's early memorable moments. I was in attendance when the team's logo and nickname were announced. It was a pretty badly-kept secret as to what the nickname was going to be. So when the name "Wild" was announced, I was silent. There was great applause from the masses but I held out hope that somehow more intelligent minds had chosen a name which was not a collective noun.
The team was a typical expansion team in that it they were horrible at times, but actually won more often than expansion teams of the past. They improved to a record 13 games over .500 in 2002-2003. In their first-ever playoff series they drew the Colorado Avalanche, who were only one full season removed from winning their second Stanley Cup championship. They still had some incredible players including Joe Sakic, Rob Blake, Peter Forsberg and future Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, possibly the greatest goaltender in hockey history.
After 5 games of the Colorado Avalanche series, (Avalanche, yet another collective noun nickname and a franchise once known as the Quebec Nordiques) the Wild trailed three games to two, not having won a game at home in the series to that point. They had won 25 of the 41 games they played at their capitol-city home, the fabulous Xcel Energy Center.
Game six was played in St. Paul on April 21st. This posed a mild time crunch for myself. At the time I was an operations manager for Globe Aviation.a contractor who did security screening for sports team charters at the commuter airport located between the two terminals of the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. I had worked a regular shift at the airport in the morning and attended the game later that evening. I knew, even before the game began, that I would need to be at the Signature Air terminal in order to screen and board the Colorado players before they boarded their aircraft for the trip to Denver. So I knew that I was going to be busy post game, whenever that was.
Playoff hockey is an amazing thing. One of the incredible things about it is the fact that once the game starts, there exists the possibility that this game could go on for a long, long time. During the regular season games are decided by either a 5-minute overtime or a shootout if the overtime has not yet decided a winner. But in the playoffs the overtime periods are standard 20-minute time frames and no shootout is used. I've seen games on television that have lasted as long as 3+ overtimes. So the potential for that type of game is there.
The Wild led 2-0 with about 8 minutes to play, but the Avalanche snapped off two goals in less than a two-minute time span to tie the game. The game moved on to overtime. How long could this game go on? It could end in the first minute or it could last until after midnight for all we knew. The start of period four was fast-paced as most first overtime periods usually are. The logic being "let's win this thing now before our opponents know what hit 'em".
My seats at the Xcel Energy Center are in the front row on the end which the Wild shoot at twice during a three-period game. This is sometimes known as the "2x-attack zone." But this would be the first game where they would shoot at the far end of the ice for the second time.
The fast-paced play led to a steal in the neutral zone by my favorite player, Wes Walz, who found Richard Park on his right wing and Park then took a slapshot from near the boards on goalie Patrick Roy. At 4:22 of the first overtime period the puck eluded Roy and the arena erupted with a cacophony which I had not heard Gene Larkin singled home Dan Gladden to end the 1991 World Series. So I begin celebrating along with 18,000 other red, white and green-clad fanatics. But I had to reel myself in rather quickly as I snap back to the reality, remembering that I needed to get to the commuter terminal in advance of the Colorado Losers. And so, the race was on!
I quickly composed myself and head to my car. I negotiate through traffic in a timely manner and make my way to the commuter terminal. I make sure to take off my autographed Wes Walz jersey and head into the terminal and greet my employees. We handed out the wands, set up the stanchions and readied ourselves for the arrival of the team bus.
The team bus pulls up and the players exit and head into the large screening room. About 10 minutes pass and the fourth or fifth player who ends up squarely in front of me is future HOFer and possibly the greatest goaltender in the history of the NHL, Patrick Roy. While I'm screening him I realize that only one hour earlier I saw him get beaten by a Richard Park slapshot. I never spoke to him during the screening and he was fairly cool through the process, to be honest. If anyone deserved to have a chip on his shoulder it would've been him.
I did give him the look of a fan who knew that there was still one more game to be played the next night in Denver. So I made sure that I passed along bad vibes to Mr. Roy that he would take back to the Mile High City.
The next night the game again went to overtime. But the overtime of game 7 only lasted 3 minutes and 25 seconds, when Andrew Brunette went 5-hole on Mr. Roy and his glorious career came to an end. It would be the final game of his illustrious career.
The Wild next went on to defeat the Vancouver Canucks in seven games in the semifinals before being swept by the Anaheim Ducks in the conference finals. A series in which they scored exactly ONE GOAL IN FOUR GAMES. But the playoff run was a great deal of fun and will probably never be duplicated as far as the surprise aspect was concerned.
So, that's my Patrick Roy story. I laid down a silent curse to him that actually carried to the next night and put his career to rest.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
I'm just sayin'.
I'm just sayin'.
