The Minnesota Wild will skate on a special sheet of ice to start the 2017-18 season. The team announced a new tradition in which Wild fans will help create the ice at the Xcel Energy Center with water collected from local ponds, lakes and ice rinks around Minnesota. Fans will be invited to “Flood the Rink” as a part of the team’s new “This Is Our Ice” marketing campaign.
Via the Wild, fans will be invited on September 16th between 6am and 3pm to bring three ounces of water from a local pond, lake or hockey rink and pour it into a Zamboni inside the arena. The water will then be filtered and used to create the ice the Wild will skate on this season. With Minnesota serving as the Land of 10,000 Lakes and with local rinks dotting the state, fans may have a tough time deciding where to collect their water.
The concept, as simple as it may be, is pretty brilliant. The Wild have figured out a way to make the playing surface an emotional part of the game which is a pretty noteworthy accomplishment. Many NHL teams allow their season ticket holders to paint the ice once the season concludes, but here the Wild have created an emotional connection to the ice before the season even begins. That’s awesome.
How many people will miss the stipulation restricting fans to just three ounces of water each? Someone out there is going to show up with gallons and gallons of water from their local pond because they missed that important detail. Of course, that’s not even the worst possible scenario for Wild fans.
Which fan from a rival team will show up to “sabotage” the ice with water from an opposing city? If that sounds too silly to actually happen, you may not know the lengths hockey fans will go for a joke.
