Every time Norm Coleman walks into Xcel Energy Center these days, he feels like he's walking into a fairy tale.
"Kind of like Alice in Wonderland, like I was in Oz," Coleman said the other day.
Those were Coleman's emotions 15 years ago, too, when, as mayor of St. Paul, he stepped into his city's bright new downtown arena for the first time, a day before it was to officially open with a Minnesota Wild-Anaheim Mighty Ducks game at which he dropped the ceremonial first puck.
"I couldn't even conceive that this was St. Paul," Coleman recalled.