The game of hockey has made influential strides in the state of Texas over the past 23 years. With the Dallas Stars now in the playoffs, it offers another opportunity to show off the great game.
18,532. That’s how many souls the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas can seat on a regular night for hockey. And over the past few years, the Dallas Stars have been known for leaving a majority of these seats open and empty.
The last decade has not been entirely generous to the Stars. After making a magnificent run in the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs that ended with Dallas falling just short to the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference Finals, the Stars slipped off the deep end and into the early-offseason abyss. From 2008 all the way up until April 2014, the Stars sat on the sidelines, wrapped snugly in their own mediocrity.
It was a tough road to endure not only for the organization, but also the fan base as a whole. The attendance, which was through the roof for the playoffs in 2008, suffered a severe decline in the team’s rebuilding phase, as it would for any other team.
The Stars ended 2008 as the 14th highest percentage of the home arena filled with 97.3 percent. They averaged 18,038 per game, good enough for 12th overall in that aspect. Not half bad for a team that was never supposed to succeed in a southern market.
As the downturn took its toll, the Stars’ attendance numbers stumbled from 14th to 19th, and finally to 29th (second to last) all in a matter of four years. I guess mediocrity does not bring in the big numbers.
The year the Dallas Stars shocked everyone and qualified for the postseason in their first year under a new GM and coach, their attendance was still in the gutter. The Stars were 28th in terms of average attendance(14,658 average), and dead last in terms of percentage filling the arena (79.1 percent).
But once the postseason came back to Dallas, it brought many Stars’ fans out of the woodwork and back into the arena. In the three games played at American Airlines Center, the Dallas Stars never neglected to sell out and overstock the arena. In the end, they averaged 19,135 fans in the stands each game. That translates to 103.3 percent. Not a bad jump.
The playoff effect also had played a significant role in the season to follow. More people were renewing and purchasing season tickets, the team was young and supposedly rising and becoming stronger each year, and everything seemed right.
In 2014-2015, the Dallas Stars jumped to an average of 17,350 filling their arena each night (19th), which is just under 3,000 more from the year before. 93.6 percent of their barn was filled each night, good enough for 24th in the NHL as a whole. It was a nice increase, but there was one key element missing: the Stars’ making a playoff run. Dallas fell seven points short of a spot in the postseason last year and endured the dreaded early offseason.
Another successful offseason of bringing in big-ticket players and rounding out the roster left many fans wondering whether the club was finally prepared to take the next step and get back to the postseason.
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Luckily, the subpar performance in 2014-2015 did not kill any of the gathered hype or excitement. This past season, the Stars brought in an average of 18,376 (14th) and filled their arena to 99.2 percent capacity (15th).
Things are definitely changing, and it is a clear sign that this year’s home playoff games are going to be more than likely overstocked. It’s all about putting hockey back on the map in Dallas and, more specifically, Texas as a whole. Jim Nill has done a wonderful job in that regard.
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So make sure to throw on your Victory Green, snag some playoff tickets if you haven’t already, and get to the American Airlines Center on Thursday night when the doors open at 7:00. It’s promising to be a packed house, filled with 19,000+ of strangers that will become your best friends for the three-hour duration of the game. Playoffs bring people together, and we’re lucky that the Dallas Stars are once again giving us this chance. Make it count.