sports

At the dawn of a new century, a mere 10 years ago ...

The Twins were about to face elimination as part of baseball’s contraction plan. The Gophers men’s basketball program was trying to distance itself from the worst academic fraud in NCAA history. The Vikings, after a 15-1 season in 1998, were starting a decline.
Oh, there was hope. The Timberwolves were on the rise behind budding superstar Kevin Garnett. Gophers football appeared to be on the rise behind Glen Mason. And the NHL was preparing its return to Minnesota with the expansion Wild.

Ten years later? The sports landscape literally has been turned upside down. The Twins are the picture of stability. The Gophers have Tubby Smith — Academic fraud? What academic fraud? The Vikings have Brett Favre.

The hopeful signs of 10 years earlier? The Wolves no longer have Garnett. Mason is gone, leaving behind a string of mediocre seasons. The Wild is rebuilding with a new coach and new GM.

The decade brought no major championships and will be remembered primarily for the exodus of superstars: Garnett, Randy Moss, Johan Santana, Marian Gaborik. We are left to wonder: Can a superstar find long-term happiness in Minnesota? Joe Mauer figures to provide that answer in the upcoming decade.

What stories will linger from the decade in the years to come? A panel of Star Tribune Sports staffers compiled the following list of the decade’s top 10 Minnesota sports stories

1. Tragic end for the greatest Twin

No athlete was more adored than Kirby Puckett throughout the 1980s and '90s. The affable Twins center fielder led his team to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991 and was selected by the Star Tribune in 1999 as the state's No. 1 athlete of the century.

Puckett's was a rags-to-riches story, growing up in the projects of Chicago's South Side and pursuing his baseball dream even though he was spurned even by major colleges, largely because of his 5-8 height. Puckett overcame all that to become one of baseball's greats.

And then, suddenly, it all changed. Puckett awoke one morning in the spring of 1996 unable to see clearly out of his left eye. A couple of months later, he retired at 35.

His life without baseball spiralled out of control. A year after he became a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2001, he and his wife, Tonya, went through a nasty divorce that included claims of domestic violence against Puckett. Then came allegations of infidelity and an arrest after he was accused of groping a woman in a restaurant restroom.

Puckett relinquished his role as Twins vice president and left his adopted home state for Phoenix, where he died on March 6, 2006, from a massive stroke at age 45.

"It's gut-wrenching," Twins executive David St. Peter said then.

There were gut-wrenching, unexpected deaths as well in the decade. Vikings Pro Bowl tackle Korey Stringer died on a Mankato practice field in 2001. Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice'' U.S. Olympic hockey team died in an auto accident in August 2003. An auto accident in May 2000 took the life of Timberwolves guard Malik Sealy.

There was no more hated rival for most of the decade for Vikings fans than Brett Favre, quarterback of the Green Bay Packers and a three-time NFL MVP. And yet, in 2008 when the Packers had their fill of Favre's annual retirement threat, the Vikings became suitors, only to be spurned when the Packers dealt the aging QB to the New York Jets.

When Favre retired, supposedly for good, after a year in New York, the Vikings resumed their pursuit. Few suitors have been as determined. Rejected in late July, the Vikings continued their courtship, and they finally got their man in late August, allowing the quarterback to miss the Mankato portion of training camp (surprise, surprise).

Favre, 40, has been everything the Vikings hoped, leading the team into the playoffs and reviving Super Bowl hopes that seemed far-fetched before his arrival. Alas, the Super Bowl outlook in December looks a bit far-fetched once again as Favre and the Vikings have lost two of their past three games. But Favre's statistics are tremendous: 27 touchdown passes and the league's second-best passer rating, 104.1.

Favre's leadership is being counted on to help resurrect the Vikings' hopes for public financing for a new stadium. That might be tougher than winning a Super Bowl, given the state's economic woes, but Favre has at least helped create dialogue that is critical considering the team's Metrodome lease expires after the 2011 season.

Joe Mauer was a junior at Cretin-Derham Hall High School when the decade began and is now the reigning AL Most Valuable Player and three-time league batting champion. Not bad progress for 10 years.

Mauer was selected the Star Tribune's Sportsperson of the Year in 2001, the year he graduated from high school and was the No. 1 overall choice in baseball's amateur draft. He was also that year the first person to be named the top high school player in two sports -- football as a quarterback and baseball -- by USA Today. Mauer, considered the nation's top high school quarterback, made a verbal commitment to Florida State, but everyone knew his favorite sport was baseball.

Funny now to think that the Twins took some heat for selecting Mauer ahead of college pitcher Mark Prior, critics claiming the Twins didn't want to pay Prior's bonus demands. Prior's career has been riddled by injuries, while Mauer, now 26, is generally considered to be the American League's best player. Mauer made his Twins debut in 2004 a couple of weeks before his 21st birthday, and he won his first batting title in 2006 at age 23.

All the awards and batting titles -- and the fact he is a superb defensive catcher -- will force the Twins to offer one of baseball's richest contracts if the club wants to keep him in Minnesota past the expiration of his contract in 2010. Stay tuned as the Twins play "Let's Make a Deal."

Rumors of baseball's plan to eliminate at least two teams -- the Twins and Montreal Expos were ultimately the targets -- began to surface in 2000. The plan was not without merit, because it would rid baseball of its lowest revenue-producing teams and allow remaining teams a bigger split of national TV contracts.

On Nov. 6, 2001, baseball's owners formally approved a plan to eliminate -- "contract" in their langauge -- two teams for the 2002 season. The inclusion of the Twins came with the blessing of owner Carl Pohlad, who reportedly would have received $250 million from other owners. The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission immediately filed a suit demanding the Twins fulfill their Metrodome lease for 2002.

Hennepin County District Judge Harry Crump later that month issued a temporary restraining order requiring the Twins to fulfill that lease. That took momentum out of the owners' plan and ultimately forced baseball to put its plans on hold. In August 2002, owners and the players' union agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement that included a provision to drop contraction plans until 2007, affording the Twins time to pursue a new stadium deal.

The Twins became a national story, winning the AL Central title in 2002. Crump was named the Star Tribune's 2002 Sportsperson of the Year for his role in saving baseball in Minnesota.

In the years before Lindsay Whalen, Gophers women's basketball was barely mentioned in the crowded Minnesota sports marketplace. Unless, of course, Cheryl Littlejohn -- the coach of the Gophers when the decade started -- was in the midst of a player revolt.

The Gophers were consistent losers under Littlejohn (7-57 Big Ten record), but Whalen changed all that. Littlejohn deserves credit for recruiting Whalen out of Hutchinson High School, although it wasn't like the Gophers coach had a lot of competition.

Whalen transformed the Gophers program, leading the team to the Final Four as a senior in 2004 and turning Williams Arena into a raucous venue. An average of 1,087 fans watched Gophers home games Whalen's freshman season; average attendance was 9,703 her senior season. Whalen's no-look passes and toughness are the stuff of legend. She came back from a five-week layoff because of a broken hand to score 31 points in an NCAA first-round victory over talented UCLA at Williams Arena.

The Gophers, led by Whalen and center Janel McCarville and coached by Pam Borton, eventually wound up losing to eventual champion Connecticut 67-58 in the national semifinals. Perhaps more important, there was a boom in Minnesota girls playing basketball as youngsters because of what Whalen and her teammates accomplished.

During bye week of the 2005 season, Vikings players chartered two boats on Lake Minnetonka and set sail for an afternoon of debauchery the likes of which even the NFL has seldom seen. About 30 Vikings were on board, and some turned the boat into a floating brothel with the help of a number of exotic dancers/prostitutes flown in.

After 300 hours of investigation, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office filed misdemeanor charges against four players: Daunte Culpepper, Bryant McKinnie, Moe Williams and Fred Smoot. The charges against Culpepper ultimately were dropped. Williams was found guilty of disorderly conduct but was acquitted on two more serious charges. McKinnie and Smoot pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and were fined by NFL.

According to court documents, players fondled naked women during lap dances, used sex toys on women and engaged in oral sex. The embarrassing cruise came four months into Zygi Wilf's tenure as team owner. Let's just say 2005 was a forgettable year for the Vikings.

In addition to the Love Boat, the Vikings of 2005 will be remembered for the Whizzinator, the preseason trade of Randy Moss to the Raiders, coach Mike Tice scalping Super Bowl tickets and his subsequent firing. Oh, yes, and the 77-page Code of Conduct that Wilf issued to his team after the Love Boat incident.

Minnesota was home to the NHL's North Stars from 1967 until the spring of 1993, when owner Norm Green announced he would be moving the team to Dallas the following season. For seven years, the state -- with its rich hockey heritage -- was without an NHL franchise.

A few hearty souls tried to bring the sport back in the interim. Attempts were made to woo the Winnipeg Jets, Hartford Whalers and Edmonton Oilers to the Twin Cities. All failed, leaving fans even more bitter.

But then-St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman led a campaign to bring pro hockey to the city, a fight that included funding $130 million Xcel Energy Center, which became a state-of-the-art facility and the centerpiece of the city's expansion bid. The drive was led by Denver-based dealmaker Jac Sperling, who became the Wild's first CEO. St. Paul was finally awarded a franchise on June 25, 1997, and played its first game on Oct. 6, 2000.

The Minnesota Wild lost that inaugural game 3-1 at Anaheim. But hardly anyone cared. The NHL, finally, was back in Minnesota.

The Wild became a huge success, playing before repeated sellout crowds and playing a competitive brand of hockey from the start under Stanley Cup-winning coach Jacques Lemaire.

Within a span of hours on the night of May 20, 2006, and the early morning of May 21, state legislators approved public funding for a Gophers on-campus football stadium and a Twins outdoor stadium in downtown Minneapolis. The Vikings had hoped to make it three stadiums in one legislative session but couldn't generate enough support for a Blaine stadium site.

Approval for a Twins stadium ended a decade-long quest by the club. Many of the Twins' failures were self-inflicted by threats to move, threats to eliminate the club and exaggerations about what owner Carl Pohlad would contribute to a stadium.

But legislators in 2006 were fearful the Twins might leave Minnesota when their latest Dome lease extension expired after the 2007 season. Plus, the 2006 Legislature for the first time in four years had a surplus to work with, making the passage of the two stadiums possible.

Approval of the Gophers on-campus stadium came relatively easily. The University of Minnesota opened TCF Bank Stadium in 2009 with a 20-13 victory over Air Force.

The Twins will open Target Field in 2010. The Vikings, meanwhile, are making another push, holding this hammer: their Metrodome lease expires after the 2011 season.

On July 31, 2007, the Timberwolves parted ways with Kevin Garnett, ending the only era in team history that had produced a modicum of success. After two consecutive losing seasons, Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale made a decision to rebuild by sending Garnett to Boston for five players and two first-round draft choices.

Garnett, drafted fifth overall in 1995, was a perennial All-Star and in 2004 earned MVP honors when he teamed with Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell to lead the Wolves to the Western Conference finals. But the Wolves missed the playoffs in 2005, then followed with two consecutive losing seasons. Garnett -- Da Kid -- had an out in his contract after 2007-08, meaning the Wolves would have to cough up huge dollars to retain him, leaving no cash to build a quality team around him.

So the trade was made, the largest trade for a single player in NBA history. Garnett won an NBA title his first season with the Celtics. The Wolves? They're still rebuilding. The trade for Garnett did net two quality players still with the team in Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes.

It also, in essence, spelled an inglorious end for McHale, a state legend and basketball Hall of Famer who had starred for the Gophers and Celtics. McHale's legacy as an executive will be the failure to build a competitive team around one of the NBA's greatest all-time players.

A segment of our population likes to refer to Minnesota as the State of Hockey, a moniker that will get an argument from the basketball fan base. Give hockey this: Its fans are fanatical, and in the first part of the decade the Gophers gave them reason to be smug.

While the Gophers men's basketball program was trying to get past Clem Haskins and academic fraud, Don Lucia and his men's hockey team were winning back-to-back NCAA titles in 2002 and '03. Lucia was the toast of the town, the titles coming in his third and fourth seasons after he moved from Colorado College to replace Doug Woog, who accumulated a bunch of WCHA championships but no NCAA titles in 14 seasons as coach.

The Gophers defeated Maine 4-3 in overtime for the 2002 title at Xcel Energy Center, getting the tying goal from Matt Koalska in the final minute of regulation and the winner from Grant Potulny. They repeated in Buffalo in '03, with freshman Thomas Vanek scoring the winning goal in both the semifinals and final. The back-to-back titles were the first in NCAA hockey since Boston University in 1971 and '72.

With only one senior on the 2003 team, the Gophers confidently talked of a three-peat. But they haven't been back to the Frozen Four since that year and missed the tournament completely last season.