JT AT THE RNC: Despite tight deadlines, Leipold is happy to host convention

By Pete Wicklund
Journal Times

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 10:42 PM CDT

ST.PAUL — Craig Leipold is having a few friends over this week — a few hundred thousand, to be exact.

The Wind Point resident is majority owner of St.Paul-based Minnesota Sports & Entertainment, which owns NHL hockey team the Minnesota Wild. MSE also manages the Xcel Energy Center, site of this week’s Republican National Convention.

Leipold is also a convention delegate-at-large for the Wisconsin delegation.

Tuesday night Leipold held a reception for the delegation at 317 on Rice Park, the beautifully restored former private club next door to the Xcel Center. That building houses the Wild’s and MSE’s offices.

Tuesday morning, at the regular breakfast briefing for the Wisconsin delegation, state GOP Chairman Reince Priebus thanked Leipold, the host. In explaining where 317 on Rice Park is located, Priebus joked that Leipold not only “owned” the Xcel center but also the “perimeter,” as the security zone right around the Xcel Energy Center is called here.

“The Xcel Energy Center is just a spectacular venue to do something like this,” said Leipold.

The transformation from a hockey rink to national convention venue was a two-month process, Leipold noted. It began immediately after a Neil Diamond concert.

“In St. Paul, we’ve been talking about this (the convention) for over a year,” Leipold said. “Our people have been working on this every day for the past two months.”

It will be even a more intense timetable when the convention ends Thursday night. At the stroke of midnight, Leipold gets back control of the arena.

Leipold’s employees will have fewer than 20 days to get the Xcel Center ready again for hockey. The Wild has a game set for Sept. 21.

“For me this (the convention) is very exciting because we get to show off a little bit of what we have in St. Paul,” Leipold said.

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