Minnesota is the new sports facilities capital

There was a time when it would have been as easy to defeat Fidel Castro in an election in Cuba as to pass a school bond issue in Prior Lake. That has changed significantly in the Prior Lake-Savage Area school district, with its enormous growth of families committed to their kids.

I last lived there in the early '80s, and Prior Lake seems a different universe. The high school is huge and ready for another expansion, the students seem to be having the time of their lives and Dan Patch Stadium — the home for Lakers football, soccer, lacrosse and track and field — is spectacular.

Included is a video board that cost $400,000-plus and was paid for by the athletic booster club. There is also new artificial turf and a surrounding track that ran the bill to $1 million.

John Millea is the media specialist and travels the state chronicling athletics for the Minnesota State High School League's website.

"I walked into the Prior Lake press box early for a game and there were a half-dozen video cameras set up," he said. "They have the referee miked. Amazing.

"The artificial turf isn't unusual, of course. There are many more of those with the larger metro schools than grass fields. Even outside the metro … I was at Triton, in Dodge Center, and they have a great setup and artificial turf. And little Esko, up north, they have turf."

The phenomenon of user-friendly amenities for high school athletes is the grass roots portion of a commitment that could be turning Minnesota into the Sports Facilities Capital of North America.

Consider:

Wild: The Xcel Energy Center opened for the expansion NHL team in 2000. It remains first class in every way. Now there are plans for a rooftop practice facility for the Wild that would be a spectacular topping for the reincarnation of the abandoned Macy's building in downtown St. Paul.

Twins: Target Field opened in 2010 and it is such a wonderful ballpark that there will be major league baseball being played there in 2050. My generation loved Met Stadium, but this has the charm of that old erector set along with a commitment from the owners, the Pohlad family, to put in millions here and there to keep it as current as possible.

And now, for people who want to drop in to baseball games where it's all about the scene and not so much the outcome, there is St. Paul's wonderful new CHS Field — for the independent-league Saints.

Vikings: The new dome comes with boondoggles such as owner Zygi Wilf needlessly assessing seat-license fees (to be followed by huge increases in ticket prices), but there's no doubt that Minnesotans are going to be dazzled by the grandeur of the Avian Abattoir when it opens next summer.

Heck, we walked into the Metrodome in 1982, looked toward the Teflon sky and said, "You sure could put a lot of hay in here." And now we're going to have a $1.2 billion edifice into which the Metrodome would fit.

The Vikings' profits will be so glorious that they also are planning to turn the expansive former Northwest Airlines property in Eagan into a practice facility (complete with a small stadium), headquarters and real estate development.

Gophers: Glen Mason's dream of an on-campus stadium came to fruition in 2009, three seasons after he was fired. I heard an out-of-town Big Ten radio broadcast last weekend where the announcers were talking randomly about the Gophers' "beautiful" stadium.

It is that, for sure, and now the administration is going to loan tens of millions to the athletic department to go much deeper in debt to finance more than half of $170 million in new facilities. Two of the three new buildings will be dedicated to football — taking away the final excuse for gridiron mediocrity.

There will also be a practice facility for men's and women's basketball. Those teams will keep playing in Williams Arena. It will be the only true dump left for major sports entities in the Twin Cities, but it's our dump, and most ticket buyers seem to love it.

Timberwolves/Lynx: The Target Center face-lift gained approval at the Legislature at the same time as the new Vikings stadium. The Vikings will have played a season in their new palace before the cosmetic, $130 million remodeling of Target Center is fully underway.

At current prices, $130M seems to be enough to put lipstick on a pig, but owner Glen Taylor already has popped for a fantastic practice facility right across First Avenue, so the Woofies and the Lynx have that going for them.

Loons: This is what the fans of the Minnesota United soccer team call their club. And thanks to the determined effort of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges to avoid having Major League Soccer in her city, the Loons' upgrade in competition figures to take place in a stadium on the west side of St. Paul, a crosstown twin to CHS Field.

That Chris Coleman, the Saintly City mayor, is a go-getter.

We love our sports in Minnesota, and we've been paying large dollars at all levels to prove it.

Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500. preusse@startribune.com