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Minnesota Fighting Pike

arena football team

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ6868237
Source-derived summary

The Minnesota Fighting Pike were an Arena football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They joined the Arena Football League (AFL) in 1996 as an expansion team. The Fighting Pike were the first ever attempt at an arena/indoor football team in the state of Minnesota. The owner of the Fighting Pike was Tom Scallen. The Fighting Pike played at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team colors were green and gold. In a 2012 AFL Poll, the Fighting Pike were voted as the 8th greatest nickname in AFL history.

Franchise history

In November 1995, the announced that they would be nicknamed the "Fighting Pike" and that Art Haege was named the team's head coach.

During the team's first tryout, Haege walked out, stating he was going "Back to Iowa." The next day, Haege faxed in his resignation to team owner Tom Scallen.

The Pike were 0-7 at home, and the average attendance for the seven home games was 8,894.

Editorial summary

“Minnesota Fighting Pike” enters the record as arena football team. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Minnesota, Fighting and Pike can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 2012, 1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1996. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Minnesota, Fighting and Pike.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Minnesota Fighting Pike” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Minnesota, Fighting and Pike provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6868237. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 2012 and 1995.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Minnesota Fighting Pike”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Minnesota Fighting Pike primary sources, Minnesota Fighting Pike archive and Minnesota research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Minnesota Fighting Pike”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Minnesota Fighting Pike” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.