Growing up, Rhonda Smed wasn't a hockey player. When she attended Prior Lake High School, it didn't have a girls' hockey program. Her passion for the game was cultivated from watching it.

"I just liked the pace of the game, and how fast it was," Smed said. "I thought it was exciting."

Exciting enough that watching on television could no longer quench her thirst. She attended a North Stars game, fell in love with the experience, and eventually became a season ticket holder, estimating she was for the last 11 years the franchise was in Minnesota.

"I started going to the North Stars games, and I met some people there, and we got together, and got season tickets by each other," Smed said. "That's kind of how it all really started."


Where it ended, seemingly, was when the North Stars relocated to Dallas in in 1993.

"You looked so forward to Fall coming for the training camp, and then the preseason games come, and then hockey season," Smed said. "It's like, 'What am I going to do all summer long?' It was hurtful is what it was. It hurt. It hurt."

Twenty-three years later, the Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars, two franchises tied by geographical roundabout, relocation and an expansion franchise, will meet in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time.

The maiden postseason voyage holds different meanings to different characters.

"I’ve had a lot of playoff series with Dallas, some of them in that arena, some of them in the old one, Reunion, when we won the Cup," said Wild assistant coach Rick Wilson.

On the Minnesota North Stars' staff in its final season before the team moved to Dallas, Wilson went on to hold a position with the Stars, before coming back to Minnesota to work for the Wild.

"Preparation for any playoff series is always a little more intense, there’s more focus, there’s more digging around, and trying to find little things that might help you," he said. There is more preparation but it doesn't have anything to do with playing Dallas, it’s prepping for any playoff series, regardless of what team.”

For Smed, who has been a Wild season ticket holder since the franchise returned to Minnesota, this isn't just another playoff series.

Read more at wild.com.