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Minnesota Wild Fan Favorite Sports Highlights

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As part of Samsung's "Favorite Sports Highlights" campaign, the Wild faithful don't have a lot from which to choose, so I'd say picking the winner was fairly simple.

Andrew Brunette. Patrick Roy. Retirement.


I don't have a super cool story other than jumping up and down and screaming in sotto voce in my house because my wife was sleeping upstairs, so I'll leave it to Bryan to tell one of the better "Where were you" stories in Wild fandom.

Bryan's story: I will never forget the night Bruno ended Patrick Roy's career. I had invited my boss to game 6 here in St. Paul, and watched as Richard Park scored the game winner in overtime. Over the PA, the Wild announced a limited number of tickets with full packages of airfare, tickets, and hotel. I joked how nice it must be to be able to just drop everything and fly to Denver for a hockey game.

The next morning, my boss called about two hours I was supposed to be to work and asked "If I get plane tickets, can you find tickets to the game?" I reminded him the game was in Denver, just hours later. He said, "Yep. Get the tickets." I looked online, found some tickets on ebay, and arranged a meet near Pepsi center later that night. When we arrived, the scalper was worried about the police presence, and wouldn't sell us the tickets. So I asked a cop where the best place to buy tickets were. He pointed us to another scalper, and we were in.

Last row, upper deck of Pepsi center, rocking the Wild colors in a more than hostile atmosphere. We cheered the ups and downs of the game, joked with Avs fans about the reffing, and watched as the game went to overtime. I fielded phone calls from people asking me if I was watching. Each time, when I told them where I was, I got the same response. "You're where?"

When Bruno scored that goal, my boss and I jumped out of our seats, yelling loudly, only to realize there were 18,000 people there who were not happy about the experience. We made our way quickly to the group of Wild fans sitting in the lower bowl. Still buzzing from the glory of victory, we headed back to the airport, where we slept in hard chairs and on the hard floor until our flight at 6AM the next morning (only to find out there were leather couches downstairs from where we were). We flew home, went our separate ways, cleaned up and went to work.

Once in a life time experience. Now, every time I see a picture of the game, or a highlight, I remind people that I was there. Nathan can vouch for that. I've reminded him several times.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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