Wild practice facility: something for nothing

The Wild is on the brink of pulling off its latest scam in dealings with the City of St. Paul. And what makes it so slick is that legislators, local politicians and bureaucrats from the Saintly City are doing all the work, as the Wild lurks in the background.

Earlier this week, the Minnesota House passed an economic development budget that included forgiving more than $32 million of a $48 million loan to St. Paul to build the Wild's home, Xcel Energy Center. The city would turn around and spend the $32 million -- plus millions more -- to build a practice facility for the Wild.

Supporters have named the facility "the Pond," with plans for a single sheet of ice inside a 4,000-seat arena. This would be part of a three-story building that would include office space.

St. Paul officials have attempted to frame this as an economic development project, rather than stating the obvious: The Wild wants a practice facility, and the city knows no other way to deal with the hockey team than kowtowing.

There's only one person who can save St. Paul from itself in this situation, and that's Tim Pawlenty. The governor's public stance has been that he would prefer to line-item veto the $32 million loan forgiveness, but do we think the hockey-loving T-Paw truly wants to do something to hurt the Wild's feelings?

The hogwash in selling the loan forgiveness/arena proposal offered by St. Paul has been that the project would create 200 construction jobs and then generate enough revenue to net $4 million annually.

The impression left when tossing out the $4 million figure is that it would go to St. Paul.

The Wild was provided all of these facilities on the basis of guaranteeing $35 million of the cost of the new arena. MSE pays less than $7 million to the city to keep the profits from all events held throughout the complex. Throw in parking profits and naming rights ($3 million per year from Xcel) and the Wild already has an all-time sweetheart deal.

Is there anyone naïve enough at the Legislature or paying taxes in St. Paul who believes the city will do anything other than this -- get a modest increase in rent from MSE and turn management of the boutique arena, as well as the profits, over to the Wild -- once "the Pond" is built?

And jobs? Once construction concludes, the Wild would use the same employees it uses at Xcel and RiverCentre to operate the building across the street.

A couple of years ago, the Wild was telling us about its excitement at having a practice facility as part of the giant Bielenberg sports complex in Woodbury. That project was scaled back and the Wild came up with a better plan:

Point out the ground-level parking area across the street from Xcel and let St. Paul officials run with the idea of a second arena as if it came from them.

A while back, the Timberwolves discussed building a separate practice facility. The cost would be Glen Taylor's, and the owner decided against spending the millions.

The Vikings built Winter Park in 1981. They added a huge fieldhouse in the '90s. Earlier this decade, Zygi Wilf bought the team for a kingly ransom, then had to spend millions more to repair the team's headquarters and practice facility.

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi -- in order to keep Tubby Smith content as the men's basketball coach -- will have to come up with a practice facility. The money would come from donors and department funds.

We've had a tradition here that sports entities -- while hitting up the public for big-league arenas -- have had the good taste to pay for any practice facilities they might desire in Minnesota.

Not the Wild. The state's most profitable sports organization wants St. Paul, a business partner it already has mugged, to build a practice facility rather than spend the Legislature's $32 million gift ... on what?