The Wild Have A Brand Identity Crisis – Minnesota Wild

For almost two decades, the Minnesota Wild remained extremely disciplined when forging their brand identity. At any point between 2000 and 2019, it would have been extremely easy to throw red meat to nostalgic Minnesota North Stars fans with an alternate jersey evoking the state’s first NHL club.

That’s a lot of free money left on the table. Hell, look how much the Carolina Hurricanes make digging up the corpse of the Hartford Whalers despite needing to cross five state borders to travel from Raleigh to Hartford.

Any proof of how much of a hit a North Stars-themed jersey would be came instantly in 2020 when the Wild unveiled their “78” Reverse Retro jerseys. They wore a white away version for the 2020-21 season and a green home version starting in the 2022-23 season. It’s hard to pin down exact sales figures but go to a game at the Xcel Energy Center, and you’ll see that these were quite popular.

So why wouldn’t the Wild just make these the full-time jerseys? Well, maybe, at least for one day, it seemed like they might. Icethetics, which keeps up with NHL jersey news and reports on potential uniform changes. On Wednesday, the outlet released a video reporting a rumor that the Wild would rebrand to the green-and-gold color scheme for the 2025-26 season.

The Wild swiftly squashed that rumor.

On Twitter, The Athletic’s Michael Russo added, “#mnwild have no plans to rebrand. They do plan special things during their 25th season to pay homage to their history, of course.” Keyword: ‘their’ history.” Icethetics confirmed the Wild reached out to them with the same information and concedes that he may have “missed on this one,” which is something that happens to even the most season reporters.

Still, the reports have re-ignited a battle over the Wild’s soul, or at least, their branding. Whether to embrace the green-and-gold North Stars color template full-time or revert to “tradition” with the Forest Green/Iron Range Red color scheme is a divisive topic, even among Hockey Wilderness editors.

It’s a can of worms the Minnesota brass kept a tight lid on for 20 years. But now? It’s opened, and it’s hard to see the debate stopping anytime soon, especially with the “78s” sticking around as an alternate jersey.

There’s a line that comes from Mystery Science Theatre 3000: “Never show a good movie in your crappy movie.” The Wild violated a version of that rule: Never Put Better…