Xcel Energy Center

Downtown Saint Paul Minnesota has plenty of attractions for visitors, from plays at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts to concerts at Roy Wilkins Auditorium and conventions at the RiverCentre, but only Xcel Energy Center has the Minnesota Wild of the NHL as its star attraction. With a popular hometown team, an award-winning arena and many nearby exciting places to visit, it can be hard to find an Xcel Energy Center parking space unless you book ahead of time with ParkWhiz. Following the departure of the Minnesota North Stars to Dallas in 1993, the state was left without an NHL team until the league expanded in 1997, granting a franchise for a Minnesota team to a prospective ownership group under Bob Naegele, Jr. The team started play in the year 2000, based from the start at the venue, also known as “the X”. Xcel Energy Center was built on the site of the former Saint Paul Civic Center. The team is a fan favorite, having boasted selling out over 400 consecutive home games from the opening of the venue in September 2000 to November 2010. The competitive Wild are currently part of the NHL’s West Division, having won the Northwest Division championship in 2007-08. Under the tutelage of then-head coach Jacques Lemaire, the team made playoff appearances in 2002-03 and 2007-08, and again in 2013-14 under Mike Yeo. Now under the direction of Dean Evason, the resourceful Wild can attract a lot of fans, so it is prudent to book Xcel Energy Center parking in advance with ParkWhiz.

Photo by Brendanjered (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons