Mirage of Destiny: The Story of the 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars

Minnesota has more youth, high school, college and pro hockey players than anywhere in the United States. For all that pedigree, and despite fifty years in the NHL, it still waits for a Stanley Cup championship team. This is the improbable tale of when the self-professed State of Hockey came closest to that title with the Minnesota North Stars. Through most of the 1990-91 schedule, the team was among the worst in the NHL on the ice, and dead last at the turnstiles. But in February and March, the North Stars began to win a little more. Future Hall of Famer, Mike Modano, and a cast of characters ranging from better-than-average to journeymen played some of the best hockey of their lives behind a homegrown goalie who made everyone believe in fairy tales, for a while. This is the story of the team with the worst regular-season record in any of the major North American sports leagues to play for a championship. The second half of Mirage of Destiny relates the exhilaration, heartbreak, and the real lives of all those players, coaches and staff who came so close to being part of something historic thirty years ago.

Kevin Allenspach is an award-winning writer with more than 30 years experience in journalism, most of them covering sports. He lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota with his wife and two children, about eighty miles from the site of the former Met Center in Bloomington, which is now covered by an IKEA store and the Mall of America.