Hockey legend champions our cause in Minneapolis!

Former Stanley Cup winner Shjon Podein has encountered fellow Spurs fans at different points throughout his pro hockey career – and now, for the first time, he finds the players in his own back yard!

After an impressive 16-year career on the ice, including 11 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) with Edmonton Oilers, Philadelphia Flyers, Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues, the veteran winger has since moved into coaching and is these days back home in Minneapolis, Minnesota – the last stop on our thoroughly enjoyable summer tour of the United States, where we’ll face AC Milan at the US Bank Stadium on Tuesday night (7.35pm local/1.35am UK).

With over 300 games under his belt for Philadelphia and an appearance in the Stanley Cup finals in 1997, Shjon was traded to Colorado Avalanche the following year and, in 2000/01, he finally won the big one, scoring a career-high 15 goals and equalling his best points total of 32 as Avalanche beat reigning champions the New Jersey Devils in the maximum seven games to secure the oldest and most famous prize in hockey.

He played his last season in the NHL in 2002/03 with St. Louis before rounding off his career with spells at Växjö Lakers in Sweden and the HC Nikko Icebucks in Japan, but it was during his time at Colorado that he first heard about the football team he’d come to know and love.

“I first started following Spurs back in the early 2000s when a team-mate of mine, Peter Forsberg from Sweden, was a big fan,” explained the now 50-year-old – a founder member of our Minneapolis Spurs official Supporters’ Club and one of many fans excited to see us in the city this week.

“I got into following them a little bit then and when I came back here to Minneapolis, one of my friends here, Bill Quirk, was a huge fan and he kind of turned me back onto following them.

“I was able to cheer for a team that plays the kind of football that I love to watch. It’s been a lot of fun following the team, watching the style they play – it’s just fun to be a fan.

“Harry Kane has an awesome story, of course, coming up through the ranks, but just the beauty of the play and the skill level of these guys is remarkable and so I love watching the game for what it is. The way they attack, the way they play, it makes for an exciting football match.”

Always happy to see sports stars performing at the top of their game, Shjon admits the sight of our goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris lifting the World Cup with France this summer reminded him somewhat of his own success in the Stanley Cup all those years ago.

“Hockey is still a sport that has a lot of fans but football is the world game so that (winning the World Cup) is probably the pinnacle,” said the former US international. “I really have been impressed with Hugo at Spurs. I think he’s done a tremendous job at leading on the field and that equates to off the field as well. It seems like the players respect him, the fans seem to really enjoy the way he plays and he just seems to be a good ambassador for Spurs.”

Telling us what it was like to lift the Stanley Cup, Shjon explained: “We always call it the hardest trophy to win because every round can be up to seven games and sometimes it takes up to 28 games to win it.

“In the NHL now, every team is so close to each other and they’re always good games. It’s still a pretty rough sport – it used to be rougher when I played because they let more things go – but to be able to hold that up through the duration to the end and actually have success, it’s a very special feeling. It’s always fun to have success. I was very blessed to be able to play for a long, long time and I really enjoyed it. I made some great friends and that’s everything really.”

Back to the present day and whenever we’re in Premier League action, Shjon and his fellow Minneapolis Spurs members congregate at the Nomad World Pub in the city to watch us on television.

“My friend Bill founded the Supporters’ Club and made me one of the first members – he had a friend who owned the bar and they kind of combined to get it up and running,” he explained. “On matchdays they open up the bar any time that the games might be on. If it’s 6am, it doesn’t matter – the supporters go down and watch the game together at the bar.

“We actually just got our first professional club a few years back (Minnesota United) in the North American Soccer League (now competing in the MLS), so the buzz has really grown tremendously in the last few years and to have Tottenham over this week, people are very, very excited.”