The hockey market in Austin, Texas is ever-growing thanks to the impact of the Dallas Stars, in more ways than one.
The city of Austin, the capitol of the Lone Star State, is about as far from a “traditional hockey market” as you can get. The metro area of the Austin has long been a stellar sports market, with the University of Texas flourishing in many different athletic competitions, but hockey was more of an afterthought.
In February of 2008, the Dallas Stars announced that their primary farm team will be relocating from Des Moines, Iowa to Cedar Park, Texas to rebrand themselves from the Iowa Stars to the Texas Stars. In doing that, the city of Austin and surrounding communities such as Cedar Park rejoiced.
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To step back a little bit, the Austin area has never really had a successful hockey franchise.
The Austin Ice Bats were a fun, physical team that played in the now defunct Western Professional Hockey League and also the Central Hockey League, which merged with the ECHL. The Ice Bats, named after the infamous Mexican Long-Tailed Bat which is an Austin icon, enjoyed a 10-year run at Travis County Expo Center prior to moving.
"“Austin was a solid box office hit in the early years, with the Ice Bats leading the WPHL in attendance during the inaugural season of 1996-97 with 6,200 fans per game.”– FunWhileItLasted.net"
In 2006, citing scheduling conflicts, the Ice Bats (who were the secondary feeder team of the Minnesota Wild) moved from the Expo Center over to Chaparral Ice Center in Pflugerville. The rink only seated 500 fans, and therefore the Ice Bats folded in May of 2008. While Austin remained an active franchise up until 2014, the Central Hockey League’s merger into the larger ECHL doomed the Ice Bats.
Luckily for Austin hockey fans, we were without hockey for only 14 months, with the emergence of the American Hockey League’s Texas Stars. This would be, by far, the highest professional hockey level the Austin metropolitan area has ever seen.
Triple-A baseball had seen a massive amount of success in nearby Round Rock, another smaller town north of Austin. The Round Rock Express, the minor league affiliate of the MLB’s Texas Rangers, have drawn 4,000+ every night on a consistent basis for 17 seasons.
It’s time to give hockey a spin. Now, the average median temperature in Austin for an October day is 79° Fahrenheit, so to have fans …”warm up”… to hockey is normally an issue in warmer climates. In Cedar Park, on October 3rd, 2009, it was not hard at all.
6,221 fans filled the Cedar Park Center (now referred to as the HEB Center at Cedar Park) to catch the Stars knock off Interstate 35 rivals San Antonio Rampage in a 3-2 overtime thriller.
From TheAHL.com:
"Greg Rallo’s goal at 4:45 of overtime sent the crowd home happy as Texas bested San Antonio by a 3-2 count before 6,221 fans in the first regular-season game at the Cedar Park Center.The Stars avenged a 3-2 loss to the Rampage a night earlier in San Antonio and earned their first win in franchise history.Defenseman Ivan Vishnevskiy tallied his second goal in as many nights for the Stars, and Perttu Lindgren also lit the lamp. Both of those goals came in the opening period, and San Antonio’s Shaun Heshka scored in between.It remained a 2-1 Texas led until 17:33 of the third period, when Rampage forward Kevin Porter registered his first goal of the season to tie it and ultimately send the contest to overtime.Stars goaltender Matt Climie picked up the victory with 33 saves on 35 shots."
Fans in Austin, Cedar Park, Round Rock, Georgetown, or anywhere beyond came around to the sport of hockey unlike anything else. As a little kid from the area, I received confusion and criticism for rocking a Sergei Zubov jersey to school or to resturants. No one knew of Zubov, what he did, or how great we was at it.
Nowadays, those same people are season ticket holders for the Texas Stars, boasting about their jersey collection, the promotional knick-knacks they pick up at games, etcetera. Hockey is arguably the preeminent source of entertainment and fun in towns like Cedar Park and Leander.
Dallas Stars
That endless support and love from both casual and hardcore hockey fans ultimately transitioned into a Calder Cup championship in 2014. While the game was played in St. John’s, Newfoundland, some 2,500+ miles away from Austin, the electric watching party, filled with more fans than you can imagine, lit up in excitement and for some, tears. It was a sense of, “not only did our team do it, but we did it – we as a community in Central Texas established ourselves as a hockey market.”
This couldn’t have happened without the players and staff we all came to love over that run and many others. Defenseman Maxime Fortunus brought character and toughness to Cedar Park, while Greg Rallo provided timely scoring and speed. Hell, even Dallas superstars like Radek Faksa, Brett Ritchie, and Curtis McKenzie were along for that ride.
Not only did those three play in Cedar Park for awhile, captain Jamie Benn, enforcer Antoine Roussel, basically our entire defense in Big D, all suited up in the green and gold the “Baby Stars” donned in that era.
However, no player, not either Benn Brother, or Fortunus, or 2013 AHL Rookie of the Year McKenzie, have been as important to the franchise and the scene itself than Travis Morin.
"“I feel like [Texas] is my home and it would take a lot to pry me away from that. So when you talk about the contracts and things, there may be an opportunity elsewhere, but there’s still an opportunity here … It’s hard to leave that when you’ve been here as long as I have and kind of set yourself in the club’s history there and you’ve been there from the beginning.”– Travis Morin"
Travis Morin, simply put, is hockey in Austin as a human form. The 2014 League MVP, Calder Cup Playoffs MVP, and Texas Stars captain, he does it all. Most of the athletes you now know as NHLers played alongside Morin, who is the franchise leader in goals, assists, points, and games played.
I bring all of this up because one week ago, I attended the Fan Appreciation Night at HEB Center, the final game of the season for the Stars, who fell short of a playoff position. It was a sellout, y’all. 6,863 people showed up, not only for the promos, but for a hockey game. A simple, meaningless hockey game versus San Antonio with no playoff implications, and they sold the arena out.
The Stars lost 6-3 despite goals by Remi Elie, Dillon Heatherington, and Matej Stransky, all of whom will perhaps be with Dallas next season. Did the fans leave afterwards? No.
They cheered, and when they cheered, they cheered loud. The Stars, in the midst of the worst season in franchise history, gave a salute to the fans in Cedar Park/Austin. It was the eighth straight year the fans made the Texas Stars top-10 in the American Hockey League in average attendance, once more over 5,000.
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It’s unreal. Ask me ten years ago if I, a youthful hockey fan who only knows the Brenden Morrow, Mike Modano, Sergei Zubov-led Dallas Stars, think there will be a successful championship hockey franchise in my hometown I would say you’re insane. But again, we did it.
I love this crazy, stupid hockey team in my crazy, stupid town.