Meet the diehard Wild fan keeping the ‘X’ alive in his front yard

While it has been rebranded as Grand Casino Arena, it’s going to be a long time before most Minnesotans can get themselves to think of the Wild’s home rink in downtown St. Paul as anything other than “The X.”

That includes diehard Wild fan Jon Dusing, who recently bought the iconic “X” that used to sit atop the Xcel Energy Center, and is doing his part to keep memories of the old building alive.

“I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d do with it,” said Dusing, a Wild season ticket holder, who grew up in Iowa and has spent the past 20 years living in Minnesota. “It all became clear to me once it got closer to the playoffs.”

Though the sale of the “X” has been public for about a month and a half since it was auctioned off by the Minnesota Wild Foundation —as well as the winning bid of more than $20,000 — the new owner of the single letter hadn’t been widely revealed to the masses.

Until the 44-year-old Dusing put out a viral social media post over the weekend that currently has more than 320,000 views. The video started with him standing alongside the “X” in the front yard of his home in Lino Lakes. He then walked out of the frame and revealed what was going to happen every time the Wild scored a goal in their first round series with the Dallas Stars.

It’s an impressive spectacle put together by Dusing himself that features the “X” being lit up in red and the background lighting up green. There’s a goal horn and a goal light to go along with smoke and pyrotechnics. There’s even the Wild’s goal song — “Shout” by The Isley Brothers — blaring over the loud speakers to pull everything together.

All available at the push of a button.

“I programmed it all so it runs from my phone,” said Dusing, the CEO of Fanmaker, a media company that makes software for various sports teams. “There’s nothing more fun than pushing a button and having fire go off in the front yard.”

Maybe the funniest part of the whole ordeal was that Dusing did all of this this preparation only to have puck drop for Game 1 between the Wild and the Stars go off at 4:30 p.m. That took away from some of the production value for Dusing despite him being able to push the button a half dozen times in what ended up being a 6-1 win for the Wild.

“It wasn’t as exciting with the lights and stuff,” Dusing said with a laugh. “I’m definitely looking forward to being able to do it right.”

As the Wild prepared to play Game 2 against the Stars on Monday night at American Airlines Center with puck drop set for 8:30 p.m, Dusing said he was looking forward to pushing that button as many times as possible. He even launched a livestream for anybody that wants to follow along from afar.

“I want to share it with everybody,” Dusing said. “That’s why I put it in the front yard and not just in my house lit up.”

If everything goes according to plan for Dusing, he will be pushing that button on his phone quite a bit moving forward. That means the “X” will continue to be prominently displayed for everybody to see it.

Maybe all the way to the Stanley Cup.

“We’re just going to take it round by round,” Dusing said with a laugh. “Hopefully in a couple of months we can bring it to the parade.”

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