As best I can tell, I first used the #oneofus hashtag on Twitter (follow me at @russostrib, all the cool kids do) on Feb. 16, 2012, in reply to a Wild P.R. guy who tweeted that Dustin Byfuglien was the highest-scoring Minnesota-born player against the Wild.

I admit the hashtag was a playful jab at the provincials who used to email and tweet me incessantly with suggestions that the hometown Wild should fill its roster with Minnesotans.

“Now that we got Parise, what about trading for Big Buff?” “Any chance the Wild go after Okposo?” “Now that we got Ballard, what about Leopold and Martin?” “When can we start #BackesWatch?”

The hashtag has taken off since by fans who get the gist of my joke. It’s all in good fun, of course, because even though I’m only an adopted #oneofus guy born in New York and raised in South Florida, I’ve got the utmost respect for the great State of Hockey.

Minnesotans have the right to be proud of the players produced here and the hockey played here. I mean, what’s more fun than the state high school hockey tournament?

“We’re pretty lucky,” said the Wild’s Ryan Carter, who is #oneofus and a product of White Bear Lake Area Hockey Association. “The one thing I really take pride in is that we’re raised different than a lot of the other places that produce NHL players.

“We play for the youth program for our city, we play for the high school teams, then maybe we move onto junior and probably college. A lot of these kids from other states, they’re moving out at 15, 16 years old to play junior. I stayed home and played four years of high school hockey, then went to Mankato.

“That’s a rare thing for a professional hockey player. It’s pretty cool in Minnesota that you can play high school hockey and still develop well enough to be a player in this league."

There are Minnesotans scattered throughout the National Hockey League, so sticking with the #oneofus theme, here is my All-Minnesota NHL team.