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'The Stars can be anywhere'
FOX 9 recently talked to fans, former players and team executives about the controversial jersey change as part of a documentary about the North Stars leaving Minnesota. Watch "NO STARS: When Minnesota Lost Pro Hockey" starting on Nov. 14 on FOX 9, FOX LOCAL and YouTube.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - The Minnesota Wild will wear green and yellow alternate jerseys 15 times this season in honor of the North Stars. The throwbacks were first unveiled in 2023, 30 years after the North Stars relocated to Dallas. Before moving the franchise, owner Norm Green decided to overhaul the team’s iconic "N" logo and color scheme heading into the 1991-1992 season. The team shed the word "North" altogether and changed to all black sweaters with gold lettering and numbers.
What they’re saying
FOX 9 recently talked to fans, former players and team executives about the controversial jersey change as part of a documentary about the North Stars leaving Minnesota. In hindsight, some believe the changes to the team’s name, logo and colors suggest Green was already working on a plan to move the franchise.
"I guess when you look back on it, the uniform change probably was the beginning of the end," said Mark Baribeau. Baribeau was the North Stars equipment manager and still has one of the first all-black, Stars jerseys.
"It was a prototype of what Norm had cooking," Baribeau said. "I thought it was so ugly."
Mike Modano and Jim Johnson both played for the North Stars when their jerseys changed after the team made the Stanley Cup Finals in 1991.
"We couldn’t believe the logo was changed," said Modano, who later won the Stanley Cup Finals with the Dallas Stars in 1999. "It had one of the better logos that were ever made in the game."
Johnson grew up a North Stars fan before making it to the NHL.
"I remember it vividly," said Johnson, who joined his hometown team midway through the 1991 season. "It was not a happy time for me because that was the jersey I grew up watching and dreaming about putting on."
The team is gone. The debate lives on.
The Minnesota North Stars jersey. (FOX 9)
Kevin Allenspach, who recently wrote a book about the 1991 North Stars team, said the team’s relocation shortly after changing names and jerseys naturally makes fans wonder.
"A lot of people say, ‘well when (Green) changed the logo that’s when I knew they were leaving,’" Allenspach said. "I think at that point, the future of the team was definitely still up in the air."
Lou Nanne, a longtime North Stars player and executive who worked directly for Norm Green after he bought the team, said it was all a coincidence.
"I wasn’t thinking it, (Green) wasn’t thinking it," Nanne said in an interview for the upcoming documentary on FOX 9. "That came about because we were looking for more ways to generate more income from jerseys. That’s how it started."
Thirty years later, others close to the team believe Norm Green was already planning his exit strategy.
"The Stars could be anywhere," said Jack Larson, the former director of the Met Center. "The North Stars need to be in Minnesota."
What’s Next
Some fans still hope the Minnesota Wild will someday return to the North Stars brand, but it’s unlikely.
"They say ‘the Wild should be called the North Stars…we should get the name back," Allenspach said. "The Dallas franchise controls that."
However, the Wild are embracing the old colors more often. They will wear the alternative "78’s" for the first time this season on Nov. 1.
"I mean, those jerseys sell," Allenspach said. "It's sort of the perfect, you know, combination there because… if you're a Wild fan, you're supporting their team and yet you have this throwback to the North Stars look."