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ZACH PARISE & RYAN SUTER For Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, the move to the Minnesota Wild will be a homecoming of sorts. Parise, right, hails from Minnesota where his father, J.P., was a star with the Minnesota North Stars. Suter is from Madison, Wis., but his wife is from Bloomington, Minn. Both Parise and Suter, right, were part of a deep NHL draft class in 2003. played at North Dakota. But when they'd teamed up, there were medals won for Team USA. to its first-ever gold medals at the IIHF World Under-18 Championship in 2002 and the World Junior Championship in 2004, and nearly struck gold again in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympics. The pair helped the red, white and blue Parise's goal with 23 seconds left in regulation sent the gold- medal game to overtime. They ended up with silver medals – one notch below the gold that Suter's father, Bob, won as a member of Team USA in 1980. So with those dynamic Americans on the market, the "usual suspects" were mentioned in the U.S. and Canadian media as the likely landing spots: the Rangers, the Red Wings, the Penguins, the Flyers, even the Stanley Cup champion Kings. But lightly regarded Minnesota had a hometown advantage. Parise grew up in Bloomington, Minn., and his father played for the North Stars. Suter's wife is from Bloomington, and the couple didn't mind the idea of playing less than four hours from his hometown of Madison, Wis. A nation of American hockey fans screamed with joy when agents, receiving and considering offers, then flew to his summer place in the Minneapolis suburbs to mull them over, and make a decision. Suter was at his farm outside Madison and let the game come to him, as representatives from the Red Wings and Wild flew to Wisconsin to make him offers. On the blisteringly hot morning of July 4, Leipold joked that Parise spent the first couple of days in July in Toronto with his and in the last few years has been going down. When you have a business like that, you have to make a bold move, and we think this will turn that around." point, was immediate. The Wild had to call in additional personnel to answer phones as season ticket orders numbering more than 1,500 had come in before the announcement was a week old. "As a fan, I'm euphoric. As an owner, I see this as a way to turn this business around," Leipold said, at an introductory press conference packed with fans and media. "This is investment spend- ing, on a business that has the opportunity to be gigantic again, the Independence Day fireworks exploded a little early at the Wild offices, as he and Fletcher, and eventually the entire State of Hockey, received word that the two biggest free agents available were a pack- age deal, and would be wearing green and red next season. The price tag was considerable – both players signed 13-year con- tracts worth $98 million each. But the payoff, from a business stand- 18 SEPTEMBER.2012 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM Most experts seem to think that an on-ice turnaround is forth- coming as well. In June, Las Vegas odds-makers had the Wild as a 75-1 longshot to win the 2013 Stanley Cup. After the Parise and Suter signings, that number had dropped to 18-1. "There's not a team in the National Hockey League that made a bigger splash," said former USA Hockey star and TV analyst Jeremy Roenick. "There's no question that since Minnesota has returned to the NHL, the organization and the fans have made it known that they're passionate and they want to win a Stanley Cup here." And to that end, the players know that once the hype from their arrival dies down, the pressure to perform, and live up to that buzz, begins. The Wild had the best record in the NHL last December, with rookie coach Mike Yeo leading the charge. Then the injuries began to mount, and by the time the playoffs began, Minnesota was an outsider once again. Now Yeo has been given a new set of tools to work with, and fans are salivating about a combina- tion of Parise, Mikko Koivu and either Dany Heatley or Devin Setoguchi on the top line, with Suter anchoring the defense. The Northwest Division is looking much more competitive as well, with Vancouver and Calgary seemingly in decline, while youthful Colorado and Edmonton teams seem to be a few years away, leaving the door open for a suddenly stacked Wild team. PHOTOS BY Getty Images going to be an instant love affair between these two kids and this "It's community." — JEREMY ROENICK