Craig Leipold was the lead partner in the purchase of the Minnesota Wild in January 2008. He fired Doug Risebrough, the team president and general manager, in April 2009, at the end of his first full season of ownership.
The new GM, Chuck Fletcher, tried Todd Richards as a coach, and then Mike Yeo. Leipold saw a product incredibly boring to watch, and an arena with open spaces on game nights.
Last July 4, Leipold committed $196 million to sign free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and changed everything. The Wild will be Minnesota's dominant sports story when the Stanley Cup playoffs open in a month, and it could stay that way well into June.
Last July 1, Norwood Teague officially took over as athletic director at the University of Minnesota. Three weeks later, he hired basketball specialist Mike Ellis as an associate athletic director.
The tandem was mortified by what they saw from Tubby Smith's basketball team over the bulk of the Big Ten schedule. The rumblings were strong for several weeks that Teague and Ellis would get rid of Smith. They did so with such rapidity that they forget to tell Tubby before the news leaked.
The turn down from Shaka Smart threw the hiring process out of whack for Teague and Ellis, but the tandem continues the effort to land a prominent name in coaching for the job.
What we have found out is there's now an AD committed to taking the Gophers out of their second-division comfort zone in the big two sports, men's basketball and football. Teague wants to compete seriously with the pros in this pro town.
Last May 10, the Vikings again showed that they are the sports entity with muscle, powering a very-flawed financial package through the Legislature which approved a $975 million stadium.