While Dallas Wings star Paige Bueckers' debut is a big deal for basketball fans around the world, it means even more to her hometown of Hopkins, Minnesota, which changed its name to "Paige Bueckers, Minnesota" on Friday to celebrate her first WNBA game.
There will be an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. Streets in the city will be called "Bueckers Boulevard." There will be a beer named after Bueckers at a local brewery. She'll have her own ice cream at a popular shop in town. You can even get a Paige Bueckers sushi roll. And the day will conclude with a watch party at her former high school as the Wings take on the Minnesota Lynx.
"Every business I can think of has something going on where they're trying to help celebrate and it's just all about having fun," said Patrick Hanlon, mayor of Hopkins, Minnesota. "We're proud to name our city after her for a day. And for the folks that know her and watched her grow up as she came up through the city as a team member, as a community member and as the champion that she is. We're just very proud of her."
Before she won the Wooden Award and a national title at UConn, Bueckers was a star at Hopkins High School, where she led the team to the 2019 state title. She was the Gatorade National Player of the Year and widely regarded as the top high school player in the country when she signed with the UConn Huskies.
At UConn, she won the Wooden Award as a freshman in 2021 and earned three first-team All-America selections before the Wings selected her with the first pick in April's draft -- days after she led the Huskies to the national title.
But Hopkins, a town of 19,000 in the Minneapolis suburbs, also knows her for her community work. Bueckers, Hanlon said, continues to donate to local causes. When she was in high school, she started a food shelf for low-income residents. Hanlon said that Bueckers' commitment to the community is why the town wants to honor her and show its appreciation for everything she has accomplished on and off the court.
"I think it's just the fact that we are a small town," Hanlon said. "It is a small town feel, and really, people in this community and the surrounding community know her as a community member. And I think it's that simple, as a person from the community who accomplished something really amazing and has a lot of potential still in her career. And so I won't sit here and say that anything has been over the top. It's just that she's a real person and a real community member here."
