Mention the Minnesota Muskies to Dick Jonckowski and the lively memories come back in a flash. The team played one season at Met Center as part of the start-up American Basketball Association in 1967-68. The Timberwolves are wearing Muskies jerseys for six games this season—including Friday night at Target Center against Dallas—for a promotion titled the “Hardwood Classic Series.”
The old Muskies were thought of as anything but classic before they moved to Florida because of fan apathy. They were replaced by the Minnesota Pipers, another ABA club that met with similar disinterest by the public and lasted only one season at the Met.
There is an old joke—true or not—associated with both teams that Jonckowski recalls and it goes like this: A potential ticket buyer telephones the Met Center and asks what time a Muskies or Pipers game starts? The phone operator replies: “What time can you be here?”
Jonckowski, known now to local basketball fans as the public address voice of the Gophers, was the Muskies’ assistant public relations director. He remembers “we couldn’t draw people no matter what we did.”
The team tried all kinds of promotions like free t-shirts, wristbands and basketballs without success. During an interview with Sports Headliners it didn’t take much effort to prompt Jonckowski to make jokes about the team’s lack of fans.
“We had three busloads pull up (to the Met) one afternoon,” he said. “Then we find out they only wanted to use the restroom.”
The team claimed to draw 6,000 fans for its opening game but even if accurate a more typical crowd was 2,000. There were thousands of empty green and gold seats in the building (capacity about 15,000 for basketball). Jonckowski recalled that general manager Eddie Holman didn’t like TV cameras showing all those empty seats.
“People would buy the cheap seats. He (Holman) would wave the people down to sit in the front row because we only drew 2,000—maybe 3,000 people— not many,” Jonckowski said.
The problem wasn’t the Muskies weren’t a good ballclub. The team finished second in its division and had several talented players but Minnesotans literally weren’t buying into a start-up league after having the five-time world champion Minneapolis Lakers a decade earlier.
The Muskies franchise had several owners and a general manager in Holman who Jonckowski said got the job because he was a neighbor of George Mikan, the former Laker great and ABA commissioner. Holman, who was in the restaurant and bar business, offered free food and drink to the media at the old Eddie Webster’s near the Met Center.
“It was crazy.” Jonckowski said. “It had to cost him a lot of money.”
Jonckowski, just beginning his career, would have liked some of that money sent his way. “I worked for $60 a week,” he remembered. “I just wanted to get my foot in the door in pro sports. I didn’t even have enough money to park my car. In those days I parked my car down on Glenwood Ave.(a long walk from the team’s offices downtown). …”