Nick Foligno said the Minnesota Wild’s schedule-release video brought him back to his childhood.In the clip, Foligno and his younger brother and Wild teammate, Marcus, sit in the back seat of an SUV, going on a road trip to show off Minnesota’s slate of games. Their father, former NHLer Mike Foligno, is driving.“Dad was the star of the show,” Nick Foligno said. “It was pretty hilarious. He ad-libbed his parts, and we honestly laughed more than we got the right takes.”There was the moment when Marcus knocked a hot dog out of Nick’s hand in front of the Sudbury, Ontario, general store. (The brothers cleaned up the mess, noting they own the store.) In other moments, their dad quipped, “Don’t make me come back there,” and, “I’ll turn this car around.”“I’ve heard that a few times,” Nick joked.
brothers will be brothers#mnwild | @SeatGeek pic.twitter.com/4jxwEZpckb
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) July 17, 2026The tour, which started in Sudbury and ended in front of the Grand Casino Arena, illustrated another year of hockey to come for Nick Foligno, who is entering his 20th NHL season. Foligno, 38, mentioned the possibility of retirement after the 2025-26 season, but it became clear early in the summer that he wasn’t done. He signed a one-year, $900,000 deal with Minnesota on July 2.“I remember when we lost (to the Colorado Avalanche), and I felt like there was a moment of extreme sadness after the game, like a, ‘What the hell just happened?’” Foligno said. “I kept waiting for the moment of like, ‘I’m done. This is it.’ And it never really came. …“I was excited to start training camp. I was almost excited to get back at the Colorado Avalanche next year for knocking us out. My thoughts were never about, ‘I’m going to sail off into the sunset.’ I was more pissed, like ‘I want another crack at them.’”Foligno wanted to make sure his family was bought in, too. His wife, Janelle, and three kids — daughter Milana, 12, and sons Landon, 10, and Hudson, 9 — have made a lot of sacrifices over the years as he’s played for six NHL teams.“I never take that lightly,” he said. “The moment I feel like it’s taking away from my family is the moment I stop playing, regardless of how I feel.”It came down to a family meeting in their Sudbury home in late June. The boys were curious if Dad would be able to make some of their hockey tournaments (they were together in Minnesota last week for a father-son camp). But what Milana said really hit home. Born with congenital heart disease, she has been through several surgeries and is as tough as they come.Hearing that Dad was thinking of signing for another year, Milana turned to him and said, “I think you have more to give. I want to see you play more.”It was always most likely going to be Minnesota for Foligno, but there were other teams — with GMs he has a lot of respect for — so he at least entertained those conversations. But they didn’t get far.“I am wholeheartedly invested into the Minnesota Wild now,” Nick said. “With my brother having played there and tasted the fan base and experience, it would have been hard for me to go anywhere else, knowing that in the back of my mind I would have always had an eye on the Minnesota Wild. It just felt right. … So, in a roundabout way, it was probably Minnesota or nowhere.”
