Wild say they aren't anti American.

Michale Russo from the Red Star and Sickle has an interesting story about why the Wild don't draft more American college hockey players. It think it is a good question and personally I would love to see more players with college hockey experience play for the Wild. Teams like the Devils and Bruins seem to be doing well using American born and or college hockey players. The Wild have one player on the current roster from the USA Erik Reitz and he played junior hockey in the OHL.

Meanwhile down on the farm the Wild's farm club the Houston Areos have a good number of former college hockey, however, many of these players don't have much of a chance of playing with the Wild.

Sunday Insider: Wild not anti-American
The fan was tired of, in part, "seeing box scores with names like Wheeler, Kessel, Parise, Ballard, Goligoski, Vanek, etc, all playing well and we have the Wild, whose GM ignores college players and Minnesotans."

I get a few e-mails a week from Minnesotans with the same frustrations, one recently noting "the leading scorers on a bunch of NHL teams have Minnesota ties (Vanek, Parise, Ballard, Kessel, Wheeler) or at least are U.S.-born (Kane, Gomez, Dubinsky)."

The reader made an interesting point, writing, "I'd just like little 'Jimmy from Eagan' to have someone to look up to."

As a point of fact, I wrote back that Thomas Vanek was taken fifth and New Jersey's Zach Parise 17th in 2003; the Wild picked 20th. Keith Ballard went 11th in 2002; the Wild chose Pierre-Marc Bouchard eighth (debate it if you want, but Bouchard was coming off a 140-point season in the Q). Phil Kessel went fifth in 2006; the Wild chose ninth. Blake Wheeler went fifth in 2004; the Wild chose 12th, and took a Minnesotan
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