City: Minneapolis, MN

Category: Spectator Sports

Description: The Minnesota Wild was an expansion team for the 2000–01 NHL season. However, a lot of work went into luring professional hockey back to Minnesota after losing the North Stars to Dallas in 1993. In fact, the NHL decision to come to St. Paul was incumbent on a new hockey-only facility. Efforts by city officials and fans led to the state-of-the-art Xcel Energy Center.The Xcel Energy Center is located in downtown St. Paul. It is equipped with four 9-foot by 16-foot, high-definition scoreboards as well as two 16-foot by 24-foot, high-definition marquees outside the arena. A truly spectacular ribbon board circles the entire arena at the suite level, showing statistics and ads in 16.7 million shades of color. When the Wild score a goal, the lighthouse in the northeast corner of the arena sounds its foghorn, and the Wild fans go nuts.Seating in the facility is comfortable and all seats have an excellent view of the action. There are 18,600 seats in the arena, with ticket prices ranging from $18 to $118 for the 2009–10 season. Wild tickets are a hot commodity in the Twin Cities, and you may have difficulty finding tickets at any price level after the season begins. There are many readily available parking options in downtown St. Paul within walking distance of the arena. The arena is connected to the extensive downtown skyway system