The Minnesota North Stars’ goalie Gilles Meloche defends a shot on goal by the Islanders’ Anders Kallum in a Stanley Cup finals game at the Met Center in 1981.
Metropolitan Sports Center, ca. 1967. The complex, nicknamed the Met Center, was located near the Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington. The North Stars hockey team played there for their entire career in Minnesota.
The Minnesota North Stars hockey team at the Metropolitan Sports Center, 1969. The Minnesota North Stars played their home games at the Bloomington venue, better known as the Met Center.
The Minnesota North Stars hockey team in action against the New York Islanders, 1981. The North Stars played in their first Stanley Cup finals against the New York Islanders in that year and lost the series 4-1.
The Minnesota North Stars were one of the teams created during the National Hockey League’s first expansion in 1966, which finally brought an NHL team to the “state of hockey.” Their twenty-nine-year residency in the state produced two trips to the Stanley Cup finals, but their sudden departure to Dallas in 1993 shocked fans throughout Minnesota.