It’s been an important summer for the Dallas Stars.
After lofty expectations heading into the 2016-7 season the Stars were one of the NHL’s biggest disappointments. The team was never really in playoff contention and all momentum gained from a second-round playoff appearance and the NHL’s highest-scoring offense in 2016 came to a screeching halt.
So the Stars entered this offseason with a mandate — fix the problems.
The early results seem to be trending in the right direction. General manager Jim Nill seems to have fixed each position of need and has taken a calculated risk in bringing Ken Hitchcock back to Dallas.
Off the ice there has been considerable buzz. An alarming amount, in fact, for a team that missed the playoffs.
That buzz only grew when the Stars and NHL announced that the 2018 NHL Draft would be held at American Airlines Center. It was a nice exclamation point on a summer that’s also included a strong push by the Stars marketing department to create excitement around the 25th Anniversary Season.
“The business and the front office has done everything we possibly can to dig us out of the hole that was created last year,” said Brad Alberts, the Stars Chief Revenue Officer. “It’s exciting. And as an organization we’re really happy with how things have gone this summer.”
Landing the draft was a big get for the Stars, and they started laying the groundwork more than two years ago.
In 2015 conversations started in the Stars office about bringing the draft to Dallas as part of the 25th Anniversary.
“We’ve been angling for this for a while,” said Jason Farris, the Stars Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “Not only is it the 25th (anniversary) celebration, it’s the sixth year of the (Tom) Gaglardi ownership. We’ve really tried to take care of business in our home market and felt like it was a nice time to re-introduce ourselves to the rest of the league and bring the rest of the league to Texas and see what the Stars are all about.”
With that in mind Farris essentially ran point on the operation.
Farris started talking with league officials and Gaglardi spoke to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman about potentially landing the draft. All of those conversations were used to gather intel for an ideal hosting bid.
Working with the City of Dallas and the Dallas Sports Commission were also key elements to the bid and the Stars had early support from mayor Mike Rawlings.
“The first time we called the mayor about it we were told he was on vacation and they said he was probably getting back to us in two weeks,” Farris said. “Within five minutes I got a call back and the mayor was on board to help us in anyway possible.”
With help from the city to work out logistics, the Stars put together their bid and it was officially placed eight months ago. The Stars and the City of Dallas each had representatives at the 2017 NHL Draft in Chicago to get a better feel for hosting the event, and the decision to come to Texas was formally announced on July 29.
The Stars 25th anniversary paired with their early jump on the bid made it an easy decision for the NHL.
“I think they’ve done a fabulous job over the 25 years they’ve been here,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said. “And I think they are on the upswing.”
On an NHL level it raises the Stars profile. This is the first major league-wide event the Stars will have hosted since the 2007 NHL All-Star Game.
“We keep trying to make the Stars big. That’s kind of our goal. We want to have national events,” Alberts said. “It’s a major market and we know we’ve got to jump up and down, we’ve got the (Dallas) Cowboys right across the street from us in Frisco and we know we’ve got to jump and down and make noise and create a national franchise. We just don’t want to be that team down in the tumbleweeds in Texas.”
For a week in June the Stars will be the center of the hockey universe. Unlike drafts in the other major American sports leagues, the NHL Draft is a full participatory event. Each team has a table on the draft floor in plain sight (no execs holed up in war rooms), there are annual meetings, and the hotel lobbies are filled by the NHL’s biggest decision makers.
And it’s going to be a tough ticket. The arena is set up more like a concert venue and the floor is filled with NHL teams. There is often a full section taken up by media members, while prospects and their families take up most of the seats in the lower bowl.
That leaves anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 seats for fans, and ticket information will likely be released early in 2018.
The Stars also see the draft as a chance to grow the game.
Youth hockey and cultivating a community within the sport has been amongst the Stars biggest achievements in 25 years. The Stars have helped build rinks, sponsored youth programs, and introduced kids to the game for free through Mike Modano’s Little Rookies program.
Getting kids on the ice is just part of the battle, Farris said. In a state that tends to live and breathe football, Farris wants kids to see real-life examples of where hockey can take them.
That’s why the Stars have worked hard to bring events to the Metroplex.
Last summer the Stars hosted the Under-17 Five Nations Tournament. There was a WHL scouting combine in Dallas this past spring, and USA Hockey has brought national championship events to the rinks in Plano and Frisco.
“We’ve worked to make sure people can see what opportunities come with the game,” Farris said. “And the draft is one of those. It’s another aspect and glimpse into where players come from. It’s one thing to see Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, but when you see these prospects as 18-year-olds and the path they are on, it can open eyes to opportunities.”
In a similar effort, the Stars are working on bringing a college hockey presence to Texas. Farris said there have been talks about opportunities for both the ACHA — college club — and the NCAA Division I level.
It’s still in the idea stage, but there is hope that the Stars could host an NCAA college hockey tournament at some point in the no-too-distant future.
“It be nice for people to get a taste and see college hockey in Texas,” Farris said. “It’s still at least a few years away, but it’s an idea we’d like to look into.”
Another idea that fits well with the Stars is seeing a Texas native getting drafted in Dallas.
“That would be be great, wouldn’t it?” Farris said.
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