Bill Masterton's accident that happened on
January 13,1968.
Bill Masterton
1938-1968
Before the Minnesota Wild their was the Minnesota North Stars. The Northstars where founded in 1967. They played for 26 NHL seasons from 1967 to 1993. The Minnesota Northstars were moved to Dallas Texas in 1993. The Minnesota Northstars home rink was the Metropolitan Sports center in Bloomington, Minnesota. The Northstars made it to the playoffs 17 times and the played a total of 2,062 regular season games. The Northstars made 2 Stanley cup appearances. On March 11 of 1965 the NHL President Clarence Campbell said the NHL would be getting 12 new teams in the league, 6 of those teams would be brand new teams from different states. Those franchises chose Minnesota, California, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. The name "North Stars" name was announced on May 10,1966 from a public contest. Months after naming the team, they needed a home rink so ground for the new arena was broken on October 3,1966. The arena was built in 12 months witch cost $7 million. The arena was ready for the 1967-1968 NHL hockey season except some of the construction was not done on the inside, So the Spectators seats weren't installed yet and fans started to show up for the Northstars first home game which happened on October 21,1967. On October 11,1967 was the North Stars first game against the St. Louis Blues. The game ended in a tie 2-2. On October 21,1967 the Minnesota Northstars played their first home game against the California seals. The game ended 3-1, The Northstars won! The team placed first in the Western Division halfway through the 1967-1968 NHL hockey season. The team struck tragedy on January 13, 1968, when one of the players Bill Masterton had a fatal hit to the head, Bill Masterton fell backwards hitting the back of his head on the ice and loosing consciousness and passed away on January 15,1968. Bill Masterton died at the age of 29, 2 days after the accident. Doctors said he died of a massive brain injury. This is the only death that has happened in the NHL due to an injury from a game. Due to the death of Bill Masterton the Northstars lost their next 6 games. The Northstars placed 4th in the Western Division with a record of 27-32-15, and advanced to the playoffs. During the 1968 playoffs the Northstars defeated the Los Angeles kings, they had 6 more games to win to make it to the Stanley Cup so they had a total of 7 games. On their 6th game the Northstars faced the St. Louis blues and lost in double overtime. On January 6,1980 the Northstars faced the Philadelphia Flyers who had the longest undefeated streak of a 35 game run witch included 25 wins and 10 ties. The crowd broke the record for the most fans to watch a hockey game at the Met Center with a crowd of 15,862. Minnesota ended the Flyers winning-streak by winning the game with a score of 7-1. In 1981 the Northstars defeated the flames witch brought them to the Stanley cup final, This lead us to loosing 5 games against the New York Islanders. In the year 1993 the owner of the team decided to move the team to Dallas Texas. NHL hockey returned to Minnesota in 1997 when the NHL announced that we had been awarded a expansion franchise to begin our hockey season in 200-2001 NHL hockey season. In 1998 the team was named the Minnesota Wild.