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So long Winter Park...
#1
Moving day as Vikings bid adieu to Winter Park home of the past 37 yearsMemories get packed along with gear as team shifts to Eagan facility 
Vikings staffers wove past stacks of blue plastic boxes in the hallways of Winter Park on Tuesday, where they've packed up everything but memories in the final week at the 37-year-old Eden Prairie team headquarters.
On Monday, the Vikings open the doors at the Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center, their new home in Eagan.
"You have some pretty strong memories with the team in this building, but it's going to be more fun to have everybody together," said Chad Lundeen, the team's vice president of operations, a 20-year employee overseeing the move.
The team's operations, including 250 employees, have been spread over several buildings in Eden Prairie and downtown Minneapolis.
With the exception of the ticket office permanently situated in U.S. Bank Stadium (and the players who are away for the offseason), everyone will be together on Monday. That means no more shuttling across town for staff meetings, new commuting routes and more spacious quarters.
Lundeen rattles off the numbers for the move: 20 truckloads of equipment, 1,500 blue moving crates, 200 rolling wooden carts, hundreds of pictures and pieces of art. After a year of planning, the heavy lifting is happening now.
It's a major moment for the franchise, leaving behind the southwest metro home that opened in 1981. The facility was named for Max Winter, the man who brought the NFL expansion team to town in 1961. His name will no longer be prominent.
With the not-yet two-year-old U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis and now the new practice facility, the franchise is firmly in the era of the Wilf family. New Jersey real estate scions and brothers Zygi and Mark Wilf purchased the Vikings in 2005 along with their cousin Leonard Wilf.
On Monday, all staff will arrive to work at the brand-new glassy white home along Interstate 494 in Eagan, 20 minutes east of the old place. It's an unqualified upgrade from the low-slung amalgam of additions that the team long ago outgrew.
The Vikings will get more playing fields, better equipment, more offices and conference rooms, better access to physical treatment, training rooms and a nicer cafeteria overlooking the sylvan parcel that was once home to the world headquarters of Northwest Airlines.
"We are extremely excited with all capital letters," said Kevin Warren, the team's chief operating officer.
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#2
Much like U.S. Bank Stadium, the new headquarters is an airy, angular structure with lots of windows and natural light. The cafeteria overlooks a playing field. "Do you feel any morale lift when you walk in over there?" Spielman asked rhetorically. "It almost takes your breath away for a minute."
The cost of the new facility isn't public, because the Wilfs paid for it. They intend to develop the acreage they own around the facility in phases with a hotel, offices, retail and housing.
Many Vikings employees have worked at Winter Park for decades. Some are finding buried relics. Vikings Vice President Lester Bagley, who has amassed stacks of papers, uncovered former team CEO Roger Headrick's stadium testimony to the Legislature in 1997.
Public Relations Director Bob Hagan, who's been with the team for 27 years, is atop the packrat pile. Among the hidden treasures in his office: a bottle of squirrel repellent, a gag gift from his colleagues.
Some big stuff won't be transferred, including the landmark ship in front of the building. "I don't think that could be moved," team spokesman Jeff Anderson said.
Some stuff will be easier than others
[Image: blank.gif]The Vikings staff is accustomed to moving most of the weight equipment once a year — a multiweek process to transfer the machines to training camp in Mankato. Training camp will now be held at the Eagan facility, which comes with its own stadium.
The locker of Korey Stringer, the offensive tackle who died of heat stroke complications at training camp in 2001, remained sealed at Winter Park on Tuesday. Anderson said Stringer will be memorialized in a more public location in the new building.

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#3
Long overdue. The Eagan corporate headquarters/practice facility is light years ahead of antiquated Winter Park. 
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#4
 Sounds like there could be a used Viking ship for sale.  Make VikeFans should ban together and buy it.  Drag it to the games every Sunday on a flat bed.


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#5
Quote: @ThunderGod said:
 Sounds like there could be a used Viking ship for sale.  Make VikeFans should ban together and buy it.  Drag it to the games every Sunday on a flat bed.
kind of disappointing that they wont be taking the ship with them.  They say it couldnt be moved, but I call bull shit.  I've got some friends in the house moving business that can move anything.  I am betting they could get that thing moved easily.
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#6
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
@ThunderGod said:
 Sounds like there could be a used Viking ship for sale.  Make VikeFans should ban together and buy it.  Drag it to the games every Sunday on a flat bed.
kind of disappointing that they wont be taking the ship with them.  They say it couldnt be moved, but I call bull shit.  I've got some friends in the house moving business that can move anything.  I am betting they could get that thing moved easily.
Dunno, from my recollection, it was in pretty rough shape when the Wilfs took over and spruced up Winter Park.

Amazing the Wilfs have owned the team for 13 years already.
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#7
Hopefully the Lombardi curse stays w/ the dilapidated ship!
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#8
Quote: @Kentis said:
Hopefully the Lombardi curse stays w/ the dilapidated ship!
Maybe they should have a ship burning to exercise that demon.
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#9
Quote: @Kentis said:
Hopefully the Lombardi curse stays w/ the dilapidated ship!
Yup...

Max Winter pissed-off Lamar Hunt and a # of AFL owners at the Vikings inception...They're the ones who placed some bad juju on the franchise. 

Moving might help! Along with a good qb and 2018 draft lol!
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#10
Minnesota was part of AFL ... until it wasn’tIn the late 1950s, several cities across the United States were earmarked for possible expansion for the National Football League (NFL). Not that the league was going to expand – in fact it was adamant about not expanding into new cities. 
Over the years several wealthy businessmen had inquired about being owners of an NFL team, mainly expansion into their hometowns. What the NFL told them instead was if they wanted into the league they needed to purchase an existing team. Period. 
Lamar Hunt of Dallas was a young rich oilman. He had tried for years to buy the Chicago Cardinals but to avail. He again went to the NFL and was told by the league commissioner to stop his inquisition about expansion. So, he began his own league in 1959 and called it the American Football League (AFL). With his negotiations with the Cardinals he knew of a man from Houston who wanted in on the pro football scene by the name of Bud Adams. In addition to his own team called the Dallas Texans, he contacted Adams and asked if he had any interest in a pro football team. Adams’ new team would be labeled the Houston Oilers. 
And so, the new league was off and running. Approximately 250 college football players graduate each year with only around 60 that make NFL squads. That left about 190 players available and football ready. 
At this point, Hunt began to seek out potential owners for the AFL. He knew that for the new league to have credibility he needed franchises in New York and Los Angeles, but had contacts from the cities of Denver and Minneapolis. Hunt felt the Minneapolis franchise was just as crucial to the new league because of the location in the upper Midwest.
The State of Minnesota was not new to professional football with clubs in the past such as the Minneapolis Marines (1905-1924), Duluth Kelleys (1923-1925), Duluth Eskimos (1926-1927) and the Minneapolis Red Jackets (1929-1930). 
Which brings us to the Vikings of the American Football League. 
One of the men who had petitioned the NFL about an expansion team was Max Winter; who had once been part owner of the Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association. When contacted by Hunt, Winter (along with business partner Bill Boyer) jumped at the chance to rekindle pro football back to the state. Suddenly the AFL had confirmed clubs in Dallas, Houston, Denver and now Minneapolis-St. Paul. Besides Los Angeles and New York, other cities on the agenda were Seattle, Kansas City, St. Louis, Buffalo, Louisville, and Boston. In the end, Buffalo and Boston would round out the final alignment. 
The AFL was complete — eight teams to begin in the fall of 1960. The next step was to set up a college draft. Meetings and the draft would be held November 21-23, 1959 in Minneapolis. Representatives and owners from every club were on hand. The assembly was arranged by Winter, Boyer and minority owner H.P. Skoglund. 
In the meantime, various representatives from the NFL were in contact with several new owners of AFL teams to inquire if they would prefer to have an NFL expansion team instead. Crude tactics indeed, but the thought process was that if at least two owners accepted franchises now, quite possibly the entire structure of the newly-formed league would implode and simply close up shop before it got going. The NFL had experienced plenty of headaches with the rival All-America Football Conference from 1946-1949 and didn’t want to trudge down that financial explosion again. Back then quite a few NFL clubs were about to fold because of the competition for players, fans and advertisers - not to mention escalating player salaries. The feeling was that now it would be more cost effective to simply admit a few teams now, promise a few more a spot in future years and go about business as usual. 
Houston owner Adams was offered an NFL expansion for $650,000, to which Adams declined (he explained he was a man of his word). The owner of the Los Angeles franchise was offered part ownership in the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Even Hunt, the founder of the league, was offered half stake in the newly-formed Dallas expansion club. 
George Halas of the Chicago Bears was the head of the NFL’s Expansion Committee. He set up two meetings with Hunt to discuss closing up the AFL to avoid a financial war. Hunt countered that he wanted all of the committed AFL teams to merge into the NFL. Halas’ response was that the NFL would add teams in Dallas and Minneapolis in 1960, then add Houston and Buffalo in 1961 but had no interest in adding a second team in Los Angeles or New York; and had zero attraction in fielding a team in Denver whatsoever. 
Halas then contacted the principal owners of the Minneapolis team and told them the NFL was definitely expanding into Minnesota and offered them the ownership group.
All of the AFL owners were in a meeting room at the hotel in Minneapolis on the eve before the inaugural draft. The owner of the New York Titans burst into the room holding a local newspaper with the headline “Minnesota to Get NFL Franchise.” The article explained how Halas had gotten the group to bolt the AFL for the established league and that the new team would begin play in 1961. At the time this was considered a major blow to the infant league. Other owners had the chance to become partners in NFL teams and yet, had passed. 
The AFL draft went on as scheduled. The irony was that the one team that defected was also the team that hosted the event. Several months later the AFL announced that Oakland, Calif. would be given the eighth franchise. 
Prior to Hunt’s idea of a rival league, the NFL had said that expansion would be out of the question. After only a few weeks of the announcement of the birth of the AFL, suddenly there were two new franchises and an announced expansion of two more in 1962 (which did not happen). 
On Sept. 27, 1960 the Minnesota Vikings were officially announced as the NFL’s 14th franchise. They drafted quarterback Fran Tarkenton in the third round of their inaugural draft, who was later traded to the Giants in 1967.
https://www.bigblueview.com/2016/10/2/13...-tarkenton





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