Minnesota has always been home to ice hockey supporters. But it’s just in the last dozen years that support for the fairer sex has come on strong. Tonight’s turnout for a 3-0 shutout win against Montreal sailed past the last attendance record of 8318 in Ottawa.
You can’t hit a record if you don’t have a stadium. Here some deets about the Xcel Center.
Xcel Energy Center is regarded as one of the finest arenas in the world. The one-of-a-kind, multi-purpose facility is home to more than 150 sporting and entertainment events and approximately 1.7 million visitors each year.
- Location: Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA – Located on six acres in downtown Saint Paul on the former site of the St. Paul Civic Center
- Owner: City of Saint Paul
- Operator: Saint Paul Arena Company (SPAC), an affiliate of Minnesota Sports & Entertainment (MSE)
- Architectural Firm: HOK Sports Facilities Group
- Construction Cost: $170 million
- Opened: September 2000
- Home Teams: NHL’s Minnesota Wild
- First Event: Minnesota Wild vs. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (3-1 win, preseason) – Sept. 29, 2000
- Largest Concert Crowd: 20,554 – Shania Twain – Oct. 28, 2003
- Most Sellouts In A Row By An Artist: 3 – Prince – June 16-18, 2004; Taylor Swift – September 11-13, 2015
When a city is proposing to build the next sports palace, the objections run high and low, long and loud. The price ticket of $170 million seems like a bargain today. But twenty-three years ago it was a pretty penny. People write op-eds about how the money could be spent in a so much more deserving fashion.
So that begs the question, how many people have benefited from events at the stadium in the last two hunderd and seventy-six months? Is there a social bounding which occurs when strangers reminess about attendence records and concert remories? Are people drawn to living close to a mega venue?
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