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Dallas Stars Training Camp: What To Do With a Weekend in Austin

By Tom Dorsa

FRISCO, TX - JULY 08: Dallas Stars first round draftee defenseman Miro Heiskanen goes through drills during the Dallas Stars Development Camp on July 08, 2017 at the Dr Pepper StarCenter in Frisco, TX. (Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
FRISCO, TX - JULY 08: Dallas Stars first round draftee defenseman Miro Heiskanen goes through drills during the Dallas Stars Development Camp on July 08, 2017 at the Dr Pepper StarCenter in Frisco, TX. (Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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FRISCO, TX – JULY 08: Dallas Stars first round draftee defenseman Miro Heiskanen goes through drills during the Dallas Stars Development Camp on July 08, 2017 at the Dr Pepper StarCenter in Frisco, TX. (Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
FRISCO, TX – JULY 08: Dallas Stars first round draftee defenseman Miro Heiskanen goes through drills during the Dallas Stars Development Camp on July 08, 2017 at the Dr Pepper StarCenter in Frisco, TX. (Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

As the Dallas Stars prepare for training camp, fans are preparing in their own way. Here are some suggestions for your weekend in Cedar Park.

Since 2009, the Dallas Stars have watched over their affiliate in the American Hockey League, the Texas Stars, with a close, attentive eye. Evaluating prospects and the general buzzing scene in the city of Cedar Park, Texas has been on the to-do list of the franchise for close to a decade.

Now, it’s your turn. If you’re from the Dallas area, you might be considering (and hopefully fully planning) a trip to the pretty, exuberant capitol area of Austin for training camp, which runs from September 15th to the 18th at the HEB Center at Cedar Park. With hockey on everyone’s minds, it’s easy to be distracted and thrilled by the return of the puck, but there’s no sense in traveling this far JUST for hockey.

Austin and the surrounding, smaller cities in which I reside, are gorgeous. The array of different appearances in different little segments of the entire 512 area code are dazzling and can bring out the best in anyone. You’ve got Austin, Georgetown, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, Lakeway and other suburbs to drool over.

As a native Central Texan, it is clearly my duty to guide the masses of Dallas Stars fans from the Dallas-Fort Worth area down to Cedar Park for training camp, which will be held in the Austin-area suburb for the third consecutive year. While Dallas dwarfs Austin in city size and population, the metro area of the state’s capitol is not to be overlooked.

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Cedar Park, about 30 minutes north of Austin and three hours south of Dallas, is essentially a product of the beautiful, eccentric Austin scene. You won’t feel too far away from Austin when you drive or walk around Cedar Park, and you never will be; Austin is the next city south of Cedar Park when traveling southbound on US Route 183.

If you’ve been to Cedar Park before next weekend’s trip from the Metroplex to the 512, you might know what you’re getting into and where to spend time and money. However, the Austin area as a whole is ever-changing, and new, great places to go arrive on the scene almost daily. Keep this guide handy when you make the trek to Cedar Park for food, entertainment, shopping, et cetera.

With the on-ice sessions wrapping up at 1:30pm for Friday, Saturday, and Monday’s events, as well as the full-team intrasquad scrimmage on Sunday concluding around 2:30pm, fans of the Dallas Stars will have lots of free time around this breathtaking town. How must you spend it to get a true Austin weekend in?

First, let’s look at food. My personal favorites and other, extremely popular locations will be listed in the next slide.

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