The Minnesota Wild's first season was 2000-01, a quarter-century ago. They have shared 24 seasons, counting this one and accounting for the lockout-erased 2004-05 NHL campaign, with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

For the first two decades of that overlap — 20 years of Wild hockey and Wolves basketball — the two franchises made the playoffs in the same season exactly twice: 2002-03 and 2017-18.

The blame isn't exactly 50-50 (the Wolves only had five postseason appearances in that span while the Wild had 11), but there is enough in both directions to acknowledge this: For a long time, the Twin Cities had a mediocre-at-best winter sports scene (at least when it came to what are considered the two major men's leagues that play the bulk of their schedule in the coldest months).

But that means we also have to acknowledge this: After 20 mostly dreadful shared seasons, Minnesota can now boast of a proper winter pro sports market.

This year marks the third in the last four that both the Wild and the Wolves have made the playoffs. Both took things down to their final regular-season games (the final 22 seconds, in the Wild's case) before guaranteeing themselves a playoff spot, but they are both in.

I talked about each team on Wednesday's "Daily Delivery" podcast.

While this recent ascent into competence shouldn't be confused with dominance given that neither team has ever won a championship ... or played for a championship ... and each has won exactly four playoff series in their existence ... we can still appreciate the relative improvement.

We also must discuss what it means: April and potentially May can get crazy when two teams are trying to make playoff runs.

I can still remember watching Richard Park's winning goal to force Game 7 against Colorado on a tiny Target Center TV while waiting to do interviews for the Wolves-Lakers series in 2003. The Wild advanced and made their only real playoff run; the Wolves lost in six games.

Granted, both teams have never advanced at least one round in the playoffs in the same year. But schedules can get jammed up nonetheless.

In more recent times, the overlap was mitigated in 2022 when the NHL playoffs started a couple of weeks later than the NBA because of the Olympic break. The Grizzlies finished off the Wolves on April 29, while the Wild didn't start their series loss to the Blues until May 2.

But in 2023, the teams played on the same date four different times, including Game 3 and Game 4 home contests for both the Wild and the Wolves on April 21 and 23.

We seem destined for a similar fate this year. The Wolves begin their series at the Lakers on Saturday. The NHL hasn't announced its playoff schedule yet because there are still spots and seeds up for grabs through Thursday, but the playoffs will begin Saturday and the Wild will start at Vegas.

We know the Wolves will host the Lakers next Friday and Sunday. Throw in the NFL draft the same weekend and two Wild home playoff games around the same time, and things are going to be busy and interesting.

It sure beats the quiet Aprils we tended to have for two decades.