Minnesota Sports Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This Minnesota sports trivia quiz has 49 free questions with answers and covers the whole State of Hockey and beyond: the Twins' move from Washington and their 1987 and 1991 World Series, the Vikings' four Super Bowls and the Purple People Eaters, Kevin Garnett and Anthony Edwards' Timberwolves, the Wild replacing the North Stars, the Lynx dynasty of Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, the Gophers' rivalry trophies, the Minneapolis Lakers, Herb Brooks and the Miracle on Ice, Minnesota United and the stadiums from Met Stadium and the Metrodome to Target Field, U.S. Bank Stadium and Allianz Field. Early questions suit any fan who has seen a Homer Hanky; later ones reward people who know which trophy is a bronze pig, how long the Twins' postseason losing streak ran, and what the Metrodome hosted that no other stadium has. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01From which city did the Twins franchise relocate to Minnesota in 1961?
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. lost its Senators to Minnesota, got an expansion Senators team the same year, then lost that one too when it became the Texas Rangers in 1972.
Q 02The Twins' classic logo shows two players, Minnie and Paul, shaking hands across which river?
Mississippi River
Mississippi River. Minnie and Paul stand for Minneapolis and St. Paul, and a giant version of the pair lights up in centre field every time a Twin hits a home run.
Q 03Which team did the Twins beat in the 1991 World Series, after both clubs had finished last the year before?
Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Braves. No pennant winner had ever finished last the season before, and the home team won all seven games, the last two on Twins walk-off hits in extra innings.
Q 04Which Twins pitcher threw ten shutout innings in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series?
Jack Morris
Jack Morris, a St. Paul native, talked his manager out of pulling him after nine scoreless innings, and Gene Larkin's single finally won it 1-0 in the tenth.
Q 05Which Twin hit the 11th-inning walk-off homer in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series?
Kirby Puckett
Kirby Puckett told his teammates before the game to jump on his back, then robbed Ron Gant with a leaping catch at the wall before ending it off Charlie Leibrandt.
Q 06Which St. Paul-born Twins catcher won the AL MVP award in 2009?
Joe Mauer
Joe Mauer won three batting titles, more than any other catcher in history, before a 2013 concussion forced him to give up catching and move to first base.
Q 07Which team handed the Twins 13 of the losses in their record 18-game postseason losing streak?
New York Yankees
New York Yankees. They beat Minnesota in five postseasons from 2004 to 2019, and the streak ended only in 2023, when Royce Lewis homered in his first two playoff at-bats against Toronto.
Q 08Where have the Twins played since 2010?
Target Field
Target Field put the Twins back under open sky after 28 seasons indoors at the Metrodome, behind a facade of Minnesota limestone.
Q 09Which team did the expansion Vikings stun 37-13 in their first regular-season game in 1961?
Bears
Chicago Bears. The upset came from a rookie quarterback who left the bench to throw four touchdown passes and run for a fifth.
Q 10Which AFL team upset the favoured Vikings in Super Bowl IV, the first of their four Super Bowl defeats?
Chiefs
Kansas City Chiefs. They won 23-7 as underdogs of nearly two touchdowns in the last game before the AFL and NFL merged, leaving the rival leagues with two Super Bowl wins each.
Q 11What was the nickname of the Vikings' defensive line of the late 1960s and 1970s?
The Purple People Eaters
The Purple People Eaters were led by Alan Page, the first defensive player named NFL MVP, who went on to sit on the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Q 12Which coach led the Vikings to all four of their Super Bowls?
Bud Grant
Bud Grant had already been a champion elsewhere: he played two seasons for the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers, then won four Grey Cups coaching Winnipeg.
Q 13Which team beat the 15-1 Vikings in overtime in the 1998 NFC title game after Gary Anderson's first missed kick all season?
Atlanta Falcons
Q 21To which city did the North Stars move after the 1992-93 season?
Dallas
Dallas. Owner Norm Green moved the team after failing to land a new arena deal, the Stars dropped 'North' from their name, and six years later they won the Stanley Cup.
Q 22Andrew Brunette's series-winning overtime goal for the Wild in 2003 was the last ever allowed by which legendary goalie?
Patrick Roy
Patrick Roy. The Wild had trailed his Colorado Avalanche three games to one, then won Games 6 and 7 in overtime, and Roy announced his retirement a month later.
Q 23Which player did the Wild take third overall in the 2000 draft, the first pick in team history?
Marian Gaborik
Atlanta Falcons. Anderson's 38-yard try would have put Minnesota ten points up with about two minutes left; it sailed wide left, and Atlanta tied the game and won 30-27 in overtime.
Q 14Which receiver caught the walk-off 'Minneapolis Miracle' touchdown against the Saints in January 2018?
Stefon Diggs
Stefon Diggs caught Case Keenum's 27-yard pass near the sideline, a Saints safety missed the tackle, and he ran in for a 61-yard touchdown as time expired.
Q 15Which Twin Cities landmark now stands on the site of Metropolitan Stadium, demolished in 1985?
Mall of America
Mall of America. After the stadium's last game in 1981, fans tore out seats and pulled down the goalposts for souvenirs, and the mall opened on the site in 1992.
Q 16Which team entered the NBA alongside the Timberwolves in 1989, a year after Miami and Charlotte?
Magic
Orlando Magic. The Wolves lost 60 games that first season yet set an NBA attendance record, drawing more than a million people to the Metrodome.
Q 17Which Timberwolves star won the NBA MVP award in 2004?
Kevin Garnett
Kevin Garnett had come to Minnesota straight from high school in 1995, and his MVP season gave the Wolves the West's best record and their first trip to the conference finals.
Q 18Which No. 1 overall pick from 2020 sparked the Timberwolves' revival?
Anthony Edwards
Anthony Edwards took the Wolves to back-to-back Western Conference Finals in 2024 and 2025, and played rival prospect Kermit Wilts in Adam Sandler's basketball film Hustle.
Q 19Which Timberwolf had 31 points and 31 rebounds in 2010, the NBA's first 30-30 game in 28 years?
Kevin Love
Kevin Love did it against the Knicks for a team that won just 17 games all season, and he had to leave for Cleveland to win an NBA title in 2016.
Q 20Which centre led the Minneapolis Lakers dynasty of the late 1940s and early 1950s?
George Mikan
George Mikan dominated so completely that the NBA doubled the width of the lane to move him away from the basket, a change still known as the Mikan Rule.
Marian Gaborik scored the first goal in Wild history and once put five past the New York Rangers in a single game, then left Minnesota to sign with the Rangers in 2009.
Q 24Which coach led the Lynx to four WNBA titles in seven seasons, from 2011 to 2017?
Cheryl Reeve
Cheryl Reeve took over a Lynx team stuck in a run of losing seasons in 2010 and led it to six WNBA Finals in the next seven years.
Q 25Which LSU guard did the Lynx take first overall in the 2006 WNBA draft?
Seimone Augustus
Seimone Augustus was Rookie of the Year in 2006 but endured five straight losing seasons before the Lynx won their first title in 2011, when she was named Finals MVP.
Q 26Which Lynx star stepped away at her peak in 2019 to help free a wrongly convicted man, whom she later married?
Maya Moore
Maya Moore had won four WNBA titles and an MVP award with the Lynx when she left; Jonathan Irons walked free in 2020 after more than two decades in prison, and they married soon after.
Q 27The Gophers play which Big Ten rival for the Little Brown Jug, one of college football's oldest trophies?
Michigan
Michigan. After a 6-6 tie in 1903, coach Fielding Yost left his team's 30-cent water jug behind in Minneapolis, and Minnesota made the Wolverines win it back.
Q 28What is Floyd of Rosedale, the trophy Minnesota and Iowa play for?
A bronze pig
A bronze pig. In 1935 the two states' governors cooled bad blood from a rough game the year before by betting a prize hog; Minnesota won Floyd, and the bronze copy replaced him.
Q 29What did the Gophers reclaim from Wisconsin in 2018 to end a 14-season losing streak?
Paul Bunyan's Axe
Paul Bunyan's Axe is carried downfield by the winners to 'chop down' the goalposts, a ritual the Gophers finally got to perform in Madison after their 37-15 win.
Q 30The Gophers were crowned 1960 national champions before losing which bowl game to Washington?
Rose
Rose Bowl. The final polls came out before the bowls back then, so Minnesota kept its national title despite the 17-7 defeat, then returned a year later and beat UCLA.