Pucking Sports

(First post by DK)

So we all know that the Wild brought Pro hockey back to our great state in 2000, but few know that before the Wild were the Wild, like any new franchise they considered their options. A trademark issue made it impossible for the new Minnesota franchise to resurrect the vintage North Stars identity, so the following options were considered.

Just to be clear, I fux with the Wild’s current look. I know a lot of people think they look like skating Christmas trees out on the ice, but I have always thought the colors really popped against the ice surface. If you ask a ridiculously fashionable cat like myself, I think we have some of the best unis in the National Holdout League.

Without further ado, I present The Minnesota Wild’s ‘Could-Have-Been’ Team Name Power Rankings:

5. Minnesota Northern Lights

Ok so you might be thinking this would be the uniform equivalent of a Minnesota Viking raping and pillaging a north star village, and you would not be far off the mark. Purple and yellow usually look dope together, but here they look like common scum. If the blatant attempt to cash in on the North Star logo was not enough, you may have noticed that the jersey is sporting some type of mustard-esque stains on it. That is actually intended to be some space age fabric called ‘hyper color’ that changes color when heat is applied. Someone must have thought it would be cool to be able to actively see the players’ underarm sweat and other gross perspiration. As if hockey equipment wasn’t nasty enough. Were the breezers made of this ridiculous fabric too? It would have been rubbing salt in the wound if I would have had to peep Nick Shultz heinous ball sweat in all its yellow glory all while watching him not produce on the blue line… ever.

4. Minnesota Blue Ox

So obviously this is a shout out to that bearded playboy Paul Bunyun, but in reality the logo looks like a cheap rip off of the Chicago Bulls iconic joint. Not saying that the home unis could not have been cool with those shades of blue, but I’m pretty sure if these were the unis and we gave a commemorative one to Paul Bunyan at the naming ceremony he would have taken it home, chopped it into tiny pieces with his gigantic axe, thrown the pieces into a gigantic shredder, burned the chopped/shredded pieces into ashes and then proceed to piss on said ashes. Just sayin.

3. Minnesota Voyageurs

While Black and silver usually makes for some bad ass unis (LA Kings, Raiders, ect.), for some reason it just doesn’t quite fit here. If I had to guess it would be because the logo looks ridiculous and more like the image of some demented axe wielding maniacal murderer who would rape you and then bury you deep in the woods of the iron range more than it looks like anything that represents our state. I realize the bearded fuck is supposed to be in a canoe paddling through one of our countless bodies of water here in the land of 10,000 lakes, but I like my interpretation better. Also, we are one of the most progressive states in the union, canoes are so 1733. We should have put the motherfucker in the type of Minnetonka jet boat you baby gangstas wish you had. Also let me address the issue of Brent Burns being in this pic. Instead of being appreciative for being sent to a perennial contender in the San Jose Sharks he decided to dig his own grave with these infamous remarks. What a total needle dick. Every Time the Sharks choke in the playoffs I dance the boogaloo down mainstreet.

2. Minnesota Freeze

OK so I gotta admit ya boy young Clutty looks pretty G in these fresh unis. Though the logo looks kind of lame, the contrasting blue and red really pops. One can only imagine the potential for home and alt unis. Real talk though, if we were going to name our team after a rediculous Arnold Schwarzenegger character, why did we choose this one? We would have sounded way more badass as the ‘Minnesota T-800s’, ‘Minnesota Kindergarten Cops’, or the ‘Minnesota Governors’ (That last one was not a movie, and infact real life.. wtf California?) Imagine the bad ass sound clips they could have played at Xcel had of we taken this route. Imagine having this play when someone from the visiting team went to the penalty box. This one is definitely better than the previous 3 though on potential alone.

1. Minnesota White Bears

Admittedly these colors are quirky as fuck, but I gotta say I just straight dig the way they look together. Having ‘WHITE’ and ‘BEARS’ on opposite shoulders looks pretty fly too. The main thing souring this photo is the presence of the offensive disappointment in one, Martin Havlat. His heart was never really in it after leaving the Blackhawks and he sucked it up on our top two lines for two forgettable seasons. We would have been better off trading him for a ham sandwich and dressing it instead. Unfortunately for us we never got to see Havlat at his Cannon Fodder Best. So really apart from the suspect logo, name and slight resemblance to mushed peas and/or urine, these look pretty legit. Imagine the possibility of all green alts (SHAWING!). Hands down the best of the alt choices.

**Special inclusion (for being so baller, so icy, so hot in the streets)**

Minnesota Fashionistas

Word has it that this gave the chosen uniforms a serious run for their money. While I personally only dress, sleep and drive in things totally covered in Louie print, apparently it was decided that this was not suitable for our state because we were not infact luxury enough or fashinable enough. According to this info graphic , they were right. (Side rant: Plano, TX and Raliegh , NC are more fashionable than us? Fucking seriously? They cant even spell Fa-sace!)

While I personally would have been fine with paying $15,000 for my own LV wild jersey, apparently most of you wouldn’t have. We should have just subsidised Jerseys for in state fans by putting a premium tax on all you chew loving rednecks out there so you could have been doing something positive for once as opposed to leaving your disgusting refuse on my fucking coffee table and making our state a dream location for those fleeing the oppressive intellectualism of the south.

Until next time.

- DK (@D_K_Almighty)