Hartman: Wilfs would like Peterson to return

The Wilf family might not be local residents, but they have bought homes and spent significant time here. They have made substantial contributions to the local community through their family foundation since they bought the Vikings franchise in 2005.

On Wednesday, they announced a $5 million donation for the construction of the Wilf Family Center at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital with the stated goal of being the intellectual center of children's health care in the Midwest.

While he was in town for that announcement, Vikings owner/president Mark Wilf did take some time to talk football and reiterated ownership's commitment to bring back running back Adrian Peterson next season, among other topics.

Peterson, who missed 15 games last season after being put on the commissioner's exempt list and then subsequently being suspended, is in proceedings to judge the legality of that suspension. For now, the earliest he can be reinstated is April 15.

Wilf said the ownership of the Vikings stands behind the personnel decisions of their coach and general manager.

"Well, there's a lot of legal matters playing out with Adrian," Wilf said. "Coach [Mike] Zimmer and Rick [Spielman] have spoken that Adrian is a Minnesota Viking and we appreciate what he has done in the community. We understand that he has to go through some processes personally, but sure, we would like to have him back."

How did Wilf feel about the Vikings' performance in 2014, when they finished 7-9 and saw rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater take some big steps forward?

The Wilf family continues to be pleased with hiring Zimmer after firing Leslie Frazier following the 2013 season.

"We're very excited about Coach Zimmer," Mark Wilf said. "He has really done a lot with our football team, and when you look in the last one year, what he has done with this program, it's very exciting. I know it's exciting for the fans. It's exciting for us. He expects full accountability from the players, and we couldn't be more pleased."

Fans already can see the framework of the upper deck of the new Vikings stadium being put into place, along with the bulk of the stadium's foundation. Mark Wilf said everything is going great with the building of their $1.027 billion stadium.

"The fans have really embraced it. … We're just about halfway there on the construction," he said. "We're on time and on schedule to open next July 1st, open the building. Very excited about how that is going.

"I hope the fans can appreciate how great of a building it is going to be. It is going to be great for the fans."

"We did have to put our money in there, but we wanted to make sure the fan experience was No. 1," Wilf said. "We want to do it because we want to make sure this building is the best in the NFL."

One of the big projects on the table for the Wilfs is the potential of bringing an Major League Soccer team to the Twin Cities to play in the new stadium. But there are competing bids from another group of businessmen in the city, and a decision by MLS has yet to be reached.

"We're still remaining interested in soccer," Wilf said. "I know there's a lot of dialogue going on with the soccer, but we think we have a great building for soccer and we hope MLS will get there. We're moving forward and we'll see where it goes."

After scoring six points Wednesday night in a 94-91 loss to Golden State, forward Andrew Wiggins needs only 30 points to pass Kevin Garnett for most points by a teenager in Timberwolves history.

Wiggins is 10th in NBA history in points by a teenager with 806 and needs only two points to pass Cliff Robinson for ninth overall.

• The Wooden Award for the top player in men's college basketball was narrowed down to 20 players Wednesday and one of those 20 was former Apple Valley standout and Duke guard Tyus Jones. Jones is currently averaging 11.3 points, 5.3 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game for the No. 4 Blue Devils.

• Steve LaCroix, the Vikings' executive vice president and chief marketing officer, gave an update on seat license sales for the new stadium: "Our seat licenses, we're just about $86 million, the whole program is $125 million, so we're doing really well. It's a long way to go, but in a good place. We have about another $40 million to go, so we're starting to move into the people who have not been season ticket owners in the past, a lot of new buyers."

• The Wild will face the Florida Panthers on Thursday, and the best player on that team is former Blaine and Gophers standout Nick Bjugstad, who leads the team in scoring with 33 points on 18 goals and 15 assists. In his past four games, he has two goals and two assists and the Panthers have gone 3-1.

• The Minnesota State Mankato men's hockey team continues to be ranked No. 1 in the nation according to the USCHO poll. … An impressive stat for Gophers senior forward Travis Boyd: He has scored 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) over the past 14 games after missing the month of November because of a lower-body injury.

• The Gophers wrestling team is ranked No. 2 in the nation in tournament rankings and No. 4 in the nation in dual meet rankings, according to InterMat. In individual rankings, they have two No. 1 wrestlers: Chris Dardanes at 133 pounds and Dylan Ness at 157.