Norm Green Ripped My 11-Year-Old Heart Out On This Day In 1993

On this day (March 10th) in 1993, Minnesota North Stars owner Norm Green announced the team would be moving from Bloomington, Minnesota to Dallas, Texas. Even though I am now a grown, 43-year-old man, there is still a little part of me that is wounded by this.

As is normally the case for professional sports' teams, the reason for the move was simple: money. Green wanted a new arena to replace the 25-year-old Met Center but couldn't come up with a deal with Minneapolis to share Target Center (due to a rumored soda sponsorship- Target Center had Coca-Cola, Met Center had Pepsi), or St. Paul for a renovated Civic Center (which, ironically, was eventually renovated to become Xcel Energy Center for the expansion Minnesota Wild).

Some might say Green's Goldilocks-like dismissal of nearly option lends itself to the theory that he never intended to keep the team in Minnesota and that he knew from early on that he was going to move the team elsewhere.

When the North Stars moved I kind of just stopped following hockey at all, probably because my dad was so bitter over the whole thing. He had spent most of his life as a die-hard North Stars fan and season ticket holder.

Minnesota, of course, did get an expansion team in the 'Wild' that began play in 2000. While the Wild run their organization impeccably, I have never been able to get behind them, or the league, in the same way I did as a kid... before my heart was torn out.

You can still see plenty of North Stars sweaters at Wild games and the team even held a North Stars/Wild alumni game as part of its' Stadium Series matchup with Chicago in 2016.