from Jim Souhan of the Star Tribune,

Craig Leipold is the rare owner who is both down to earth and good at his job. As he twists a few stat sheets into a wad, grumbling about the performance of a certain player, his father stands in the back of the suite, grinning.

“The bottle is always half-full with that one,” Werner Leipold said. “He always believes his team is going to win the Stanley Cup.”

That hasn’t happened yet. Leipold, who bought an expansion NHL franchise before he “knew what offsides was,” he said, has owned the Nashville Predators and the Minnesota Wild. As Leipold grumbled and exulted during a preseason game on a recent weeknight, his father said he saw early signs of business acumen from his son.

“When he was little, there was a construction site near our house,” Werner Leipold said. “They were building a school. So Craig started bringing them ice. For a price. Then, he started bringing them soda, for a little more money.

“Then one of the guys told him that if he wanted to make real money, he should bring them beer. I had to put a stop to it after Craig sold all of my Miller Lites.”

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