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Wild play at home in front of non-sellout crowd for first time ever, hysteria ensues

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Who says history doesn’t happen in the preseason? The Minnesota Wild managed to do something in their 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues that they’ve never done before. They managed to not play the game in front of a sellout crowd. With an announced crowd of 16,219 it marked the first time in franchise history that the Wild played in front of anything less than the “team of 18,000" in St. Paul.

While some Wild fans, blogs, and executives alike lament the disappointing turn out, getting hysterical about not selling out a preseason game and losing a mythical streak is a bit much. Having Wild owner Craig Leipold go so far as to write a letter to the fans about this brings “hysteria” to a entirely new level.

Thankfully Michael Russo of The Star Tribune is here to tell us that all is not exactly lost.

The NHL counts regular season and postseason in active sellout streak, so technically the Wild has a 382-game sellout streak still intact. But it’s brilliant. The Wild makes a huge deal of it now, and now if they don’t sell out Game 3 or 5 or 7 of the regular season, we make it just a footnote in print.

Incidentally, the Wild has still not sold out opening night, so tickets are still available if you’re interested.

The streak was going to end some time in this day and age of a rocky economy, tons of good entertainment and sports choices in this area and the fact that the Wild’s missed the playoffs for two years in a row and hasn’t been past the first round since 2003.

The reality is, put a winner on the ice, the fans will flock again. But the honeymoon’s over. It’s time to win.

These are the sorts of rough days the Wild had to expect going through and changing things up from a staid and uninspiring style to what coach Todd Richards is doing now with the Wild. Simply flipping a switch from one style to another doesn’t work overnight the way many fans wish it would. You need the right personnel to play the game and for the Wild right now, they’re caught in the middle with guys that brought up in Lemaire’s system and former GM Doug Risebrough’s uninspired scouting.

Wild fans are upset and they want a winner that plays a style they can get excited about. That’s a lot to ask for when going through such turnover within the organization and Wild fans are finally responding (perhaps a few seasons too late) with their wallets that mediocrity won’t cut it. Minnesota fans can’t ever be accused of being bad hockey fans, Minnesota is the most hockey-mad state in the union. They do know when they’re not being given something worth spending boatloads of money on though and the Wild the last few years certainly haven’t been that.