Don’t look now, but the Minnesota Wild are relevant again.

In the state of Minnesota, my generation has never had a great playoff series victory to call its own. Not anymore.

Wednesday night was a monumental game for Mike Yeo, his coaching staff and the Wild, but more importantly, Nino Niederreiter’s game seven overtime goal has given young fans a much-needed shot of life. Walking around campus, I’ve never seen more support for a local team. Whether it’s a snapback Wild hat or a Mikko Koivu jersey, the bandwagon fans have emerged from wherever they were hiding during the regular season. And I say, bring them on; bring your friends because the Wild and the NHL can use all of our support.

What about the 2003 Wild overtime victory against the Colorado Avalanche, you ask? Sure, it was one of the greatest memories in the franchise’s brief history, but for me and my peers, we were only 11 years old at that time. We were most likely all put to bed hours before Andrew Brunette delivered the dagger to Patrick Roy’s career.

A year later, the Minnesota Timberwolves were in their 15th year as a franchise, and quite frankly, it was the only season that was worth watching. Fresh off a regular-season MVP award, Kevin Garnett put the team on his back through two playoff series victories.

So Garnett and the “big three” beat Denver, outlasted the Sacramento Kings in seven games, and eventually fell to the star-studded Los Angeles Lakers team that featured Shaq, Karl Malone and Kobe Bryant. But once more, we were still only 12 years old, and this state has never been much of a basketball hub anyway.

The Minnesota Twins electrified the now-demolished Metrodome in the 2000s with playoff appearances from 2002-04, 2006 and 2009-10. The 2002 Twins made it to the ALCS before being eliminated, losing four games to one. The last five of the Twins runs into September have been cut short in the first round, losing 3-1 twice and being swept 3-0 the last three appearances.

The 2004 Minnesota Vikings had Daunte Culpepper at the helm, and the team squeezed into the playoffs with an 8-8 record. While the Vikings stunned the Packers in a wild-card game, the Eagles embarrassed them the next week. In 2010, Brett Favre brought hope to the Twin Cities once more, only to fall in a controversial game to the New Orleans Saints. This would be the biggest challenge to my opinion, but one-and-done football games don’t have the same monumentum of a seven-game series.

College sports? The Golden Gopher men’s hockey team won back-to-back national championships in the 2002 and 2003 seasons. The Gopher football team last won a championship in 1960, so ask your grandparents about that.

We are the “State of Hockey,” but I’d argue that in professional hockey, we’ve been hibernating since ‘03. We are the self-acclaimed Mecca of everything hockey, but most people don’t act like it. Minnesotans boast about being the most knowledgeable fan base in the country and biggest lovers of the sport, but you wouldn’t come to that conclusion from observing reality. Hockey is just another sport that comes and goes without much fuss.

While I don’t think one playoff series will permanently change my generation’s outlook on sports, I think this was the spark Minnesota needed. The Wild would clearly need to win a Stanley Cup or two in a short period of time, like the Blackhawks, for us to follow our teams more religiously again.

The Wild-Blackhawks series has brought an interesting rift down the St. Thomas community. During the weekend, the bars and apartments were packed with finally-interested fans supporting the Wild and a lot of Wisconsin citizens cheering for “their” team because they don’t have one to call their own. And I’m OK with that; the more the merrier.

I’m not saying I’m a die-hard Wild fan—I’m more of a Gopher and Vikings fan. But the Wild have managed to not only capture my cynical sports heart but also the hearts of thousands. It doesn’t matter whether the Wild sweep the Blackhawks or get swept, Minnesota’s young fans simply care about something again.

Reading my Twitter feed Wednesday night with instant live-tweeting about a missed call or a game-tying goal, the Avalanche and Wild have truly showed how beautiful the natural spirit of competition can be.

And that it’s nice to be on the winning side of it, too.

Joey Anderson can be reached at ande9008@stthomas.edu.