Metropolitan Stadium opened in Bloomington on April 24, 1956, for a game between the Minneapolis Millers and the Wichita Braves in the Class AAA American Association. The Met was built to attract a major league baseball team to the Minneapolis side of the river.
Midway Stadium opened across Snelling Avenue from the State Fairgrounds on April 25, 1957, with a day-night doubleheader between the St. Paul Saints and those same Wichita Braves. Midway was built to attract a major league team to St. Paul.
That's the way it was between the forces of the Mill City and the Saintly City, before the Twins came from Washington, D.C., and Vikings were added to the NFL and started sharing Met Stadium in 1961.
I thought it was different by the mid-'60s. I thought we were all in it together to bring an NHL expansion team to Minnesota.
The error of that was discovered on Friday, when looking for information in the wake of the death of Walter Bush, Minnesota's great hockey man. Bush died of a heart attack at age 86 on Thursday.
I did not realize until reading 50-year-old newspaper clippings just how deep Walter's desire was to bring the NHL here: so deep that he was willing to step aside and allow a St. Paul group to take a shot.
The NHL's Board of Governors meeting on expansion was scheduled for Feb. 9, 1966. Bush, Gordie Ritz and Bob McNulty had been working on getting a team for over a year.
A week before the expansion meeting, a St. Paul group headed by Henry Foussard announced a lease agreement to have an NHL team play in a remodeled St. Paul Auditorium.