The one easy off-season change for the Wild: Please change the goal song

Minnesota.

10,000 lakes. Mississippi River. Winter. Mosquitoes. Cabins. Fishing. Theaters. Hockey. Prince.

For those of us who call (or have called) Minnesota home at one point in their lives, we have made lists like the one above. There are many things that can be added, but I would say for many of us, our lists would look similar. For those in the major cities on the East and West Coasts, we here in the Midwest live in “fly over” country. A boring place, that has no real identity. Nothing cool about it. We’re seen as this homogenous group of white farmers. But those who hold those beliefs have never spent much time here. They’ve seen how we’re portrayed in Fargo and never go beyond that. They don’t know that Minnesota has one of the largest Hmong and Somali populations outside of their respective homelands. These ethnic groups along with Latinos, other Asian immigrants, other African immigrants, and a large mix European ancestry have made for a unique experience. There are few areas in this country where a mosque can experience a fire and the Lutheran church down the street will open up their house of worship so people of a different faith have a place to hold their prayer services. Welcome to Minnesota Nice.

However for many of us, this past week has brought about a major unifying force. People of different walks of life, different skin colors, different ages came together. Just last Thursday, many of us were shocked to hear of the unexpected death of Prince. For Minnesotans, he was our sense of cool. His music was the voice of a generation. While the world mourned, Minnesota celebrated his life and music. Pop up memorials were everywhere, but the two most common were at Princes home and studio of Paisley Park in Chanhassen and that Minneapolis landmark, First Avenue. Impromptu dance parties popped up, and celebrated Prince with joyful tears.

But it wasn’t just the rock and roll world that celebrated Prince’s life. The Minnesota Orchestra turned Orchestra Hall purple. In a bit of an ironic twist turned coincidence of epic proportions, the Minnesota Orchestra performed the Requiem of Johannes Brahms. The Minnesota Department of Transportation turned the I-35 bridge purple. And the hometown Minnesota Twins did their own tribute on a rainy day at Target Field.

For Minnesota Wild fans, Prince’s death came in the middle of  the first round. The first game after his death was played in Dallas. Shortly after his death, Wild fans started calling for some sort of tribute. As Wild fans, we are well aware of the concept of “one of us” when it comes to hiring coaching staff and acquiring players. There is a contingent of fans who can’t enough of having Minnesota-born players on the team. While Prince wasn’t a hockey player, he is definitely “one of us.” For a musician of his immense talent, he could have easily moved to New York, Los Angeles, or London. But he was a Minnesotan to the core and refused to move anywhere. Back in 2004, Prince was essentially welcomed to the Wild family after his three sold-out shows at Xcel Energy Center. In recognition of that event, he was given this jersey, which many of us have seen pictures of the past few days.

On Friday, the Minnesota Wild started setting up Xcel Energy Center for Game 6. Like you find across the league during the playoffs in many arenas, there will be towels or t-shirts placed on every seat. The Wild had planned just that, however they did a little creating shirt removal. This bit of arena art went to honor the life of one of the greatest musicians.

However, for many of us that didn’t go far enough. For years, we’ve had to listen to “Crowd Chant” by Joe Satriani as the goal song. Now that song wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t hear it at several other arenas as well. There’s nothing unique about it and fans have been asking for a new one for a long time. While fans have been asking for one, there hasn’t been much of a consensus of what it should changed to. Until now. Almost immediately after the Wild won Game 5 in Dallas, there were comments popping up all over Twitter, asking the Wild to change the goal song to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” One fan went so far as to create a petition on Change.org:

Goal Song Petition

If you haven’t signed it yet, please do. I know for myself, I sent a bunch of tweets at the Wild asking them to change the goal song, at least for Game 6. There had been indication from the team that they weren’t going to change it, much to the chagrin of the fans. I continued to send my thoughts to the Wild. We knew there was going to be a pre-game tribute and moment of silence for one of our own, but that was it. However, just before the game started, we got this tweet from Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

“Let’s Go Crazy” will be the #mnwild goal song today. They were thinking pregame of maybe alternating between that and Delirious, too

— Michael Russo (@Russostrib) April 24, 2016

It finally felt like the organization heard its fans and gave us what we wanted. However, with the way the game started and continued for those first two periods, it felt like we were never going to hear the tribute that we really wanted (although this video is from the 2nd goal).

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We went from thinking we’d never hear what we want as our new goal song to thinking we’d hear it maybe once to hearing it four times. The Wild arrived late to the party to make it a game, however in the end those four goals weren’t enough.

Now, the season is over. It is that time for the ifs, ands, and buts. Time for second guessing, hindsight, and to borrow a football term, armchair quarterbacking. The Wild have a lot of decisions to make, everything from coaches, general manager, players, the draft, and free agency. While there are a lot of questions that need answers, there is one thing that shouldn’t even need to be thought about. That is the goal song. The fans found the answer in their grief and their celebration of the life and death of one of us. As a Minnesota team, we are the one team in the National Hockey League that should use Prince. If another team does it after us, we can clearly point the finger and say we’ve been copied. The Minnesota Twins will be playing “Little Red Corvette” after the 7th inning stretch for the rest of their season. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Minnesota Vikings open up their new stadium with “Purple Rain” as the one professional team in the state where purple is their main color. “Let’s Go Crazy” is the perfect goal song, and it is time for this team to live by their words. They tell us we’re the greatest fans, so now it is time to do something that we’ve asked for.

We are Minnesota. We are Prince.