Are Minnesota Wild Fans Xenophobic, or is it Something More Sinister?

The Wild blogosphere isn't very big. The number of sites writing about the Wild with any regularity is pretty small in comparison to teams north of the border, and even some south of it. I won't go about naming them all here (they are in the blog roll on the left side of the site), but the ones that post regularly are pretty good, and you should be reading them.

Two of my absolute favorites are First Round Bust and Hitting the Post. The writers at both sites can make a reasoned argument, throw in a dash of lunacy, and are good for information and a laugh from time to time. Plus, you know, the guys at FRB bought me a beer once, so they have street cred.

From time to time, however, there is going to be a bit of disagreement among the brain trust. Nick from HTP and I have had some epic debates on the Twitters. I can't speak for him, but even when those debates get testy, the respect is still there. It is not often I am willing to call out a writer or a post from these two sites.

Today, an exception. Please keep in mind this is all in the furtherance of debate, not an attack.

Today, Mike (the new guy to the scene) says that Wild fans are Xenophobes, and exhibit some sort of Mike Millbury / Don Cherry-esque attitude about European hockey players. Let's take a look at the post.

The comment that sent Mike to the keyboard makes my head hurt. First off, anyone who says John Scott is better than Mikko Koivu is an idiot. The type of idiot you need to just not engage and walk away from. Hell, Scott would be the first in line to tell you he isn't as good as Koivu.

Basically, the post is premised on the conversation between two people who don't know a lick about what they are talking about. This is where Mike takes us on a trip. You can read the entire post for yourself, but here is a sample:

Let's break this down.

Notice one thing that was not mentioned in any of the descriptions above? Their ancestry. I have seen very few (as in, maybe one or two) comments about European players coming from Wild fans. Bigots exist in every fan base, though. Saying that the entire fan base seems to show xenophobic attitude because they didn't like the players above? I'm not buying it.

The summation from Mike is this:

The Wild fan base is (over)reactionary, and they are (despite my best efforts) monumentally provincial. But xenophobic? Not a chance. Not even a small one. One conversation between two idiots at one game does not make a solid base for this argument.

The players listed out as the key evidence, save for Gaborik and Koivu, are flat out bad hockey players. And Gaborik deserves everything he gets for the way he left town. The gripes against Koivu, I disagree with, but no one is saying it is because he isn't North American.

I have an admitted bias. I want my d-men to play defense, and I want my forwards to hit the net. I don't rightly care where on the planet you were born, or even if you were born on the planet. If you are a defenseman, your first job is to stop the other team from scoring. If you are a forward, you need to score, or at very least be able to hit the net when you do shoot the puck.

My patience is thin with all players on the ice, right up until they do something that commands some respect, and I think that is the way most of the fan base operates as well. We'll find out in the comments, I am willing to bet.

There are far too many examples of players from North America being reviled by Wild fans for a conclusion of xenophobia to be fair. European, American, Canadian, Asian, Martian... it flat out doesn't matter. If you can play, you can play. And if you can't, expect to be ridiculed.