St. Paul turns the other check, usurps title as 'Hockeytown'

Last update: December 6, 2007 - 10:44 PM

Move over Detroit, Buffalo and Philadephia. St. Paul is now skating with the big stick.

Dubbed Hockeytown U.S.A. this week by Sports Illustrated magazine, St. Paul seized the title from Detroit, which had claimed the honor for decades but where hockey no longer sells like it once did.

Buffalo and Philly also didn't cut it. St. Paul skated away with the title, and not just because sell-out crowds have filled the Xcel Energy Center for every game in the Minnesota Wild's seven-year history.

"Unlike in, say, Philadelphia, hockey in St. Paul grows from the bottom up," SI writer Michael Farber said. "This is the unwritten hockey schedule in the Twin Cities: boys' hockey Tuesday night, girls' hockey Thursday night, Gopher hockey Friday and Saturday nights. Boys and girls also play on Saturday afternoon.''

Of course, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, a hockey player all his life, concurs.

"Hockey is a part of who we are. ... It's a passion,'' he said, while tossing a hockey puck back and forth in his hands.

There are, of course, other pretenders to the crown.

Nearly 400 miles north of St. Paul in Warroad, where parents buy newborns hockey skates before booties, Mayor Bob Marvin isn't getting his breezers in a bunch. He is, after all, a Wild season ticket holder.

"I think Sports Illustrated should have done a little more homework,'' he said, driving past the Warroad water tower, which is emblazoned with hockey sticks. "But for those in the know, they'll understand.''

MARY LYNN SMITH

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