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  • February 16, 2025
Minnesota Wild will wear the North Stars colors fifteen times this season. Will the logo ever return?

Minnesota Wild will wear the North Stars colors fifteen times this season. Will the logo ever return?

The Minnesota Wild will wear green and yellow alternate jerseys fifteen times this season in honor of the North Stars. The throwbacks were first unveiled in 2023, 30 years after the North Stars moved to Dallas. Before relocating the franchise, owner Norm Green decided to overhaul the team’s iconic “N” logo and color scheme leading up to the 1991–92 season. The team eliminated the word “North” altogether and switched to black jerseys with gold letters and numbers.

What they say

FOX 9 recently spoke with fans, former players and team executives about the controversial jersey change as part of a documentary about the North Stars leaving Minnesota. In retrospect, some believe that the changes to the team’s name, logo and colors suggest that Green was already working on a plan to move the franchise.

“When you look back on it, I think the uniform change was probably the beginning of the end,” Mark Baribeau said. Baribeau was the equipment manager for the North Stars and still has one of the first all-black Stars jerseys.

“It was a prototype of what Norm was 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 had changed,” said Modano, who later won the Stanley Cup Finals with the Dallas Stars in 1999. “It had one of the better logos ever done in the game.”

Johnson grew up a North Stars fan before reaching the NHL.

“I remember it vividly,” said Johnson, who joined his hometown team midway through the 1991 season. “It wasn’t a happy time for me because that was the jersey I looked at as a kid and dreamed of wearing.”

The team is gone. The debate lives on.

The Minnesota North Stars jersey. (FOX9)

Kevin Allenspach, who recently wrote a book about the 1991 North Stars team, said the team’s move, shortly after changing names and jerseys, naturally has fans wondering.

“A lot of people say, ‘when Green changed the logo, I knew they were leaving,’” Allenspach said. “I think the future of the team was definitely up in the air at that point.”

Lou Nanne, a longtime North Stars player and manager who worked directly for Norm Green after he bought the team, said it was all a coincidence.

“I didn’t think so, (Green) didn’t think so,” 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 revenue 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 that the Minnesota Wild will one day return to the North Stars brand, but that is unlikely.

“They say ‘the Wild should be called the North Stars… we need to get the name back,’” Allenspach said. “The Dallas franchise controls that.”

However, the Wild are increasingly embracing the old colors. On November 1, they will wear the alternative ’78s’ for the first time this season.

“I mean, they sell jerseys,” Allenspach said. “It’s kind of a perfect combination because… if you’re a Wild fan, you support their team and yet you have a throwback to the North Stars look.”

“NO STARS: When Minnesota Lost Pro Hockey” premieres Nov. 14 on FOX 9 and FOX LOCAL.