Being a Dallas sports fan is hard. That stress is something the Dallas Stars need to help alleviate, rather than reinforce.
Having grown up in Austin, Texas, I’ll say that being a sports fan here is pretty odd. In all sports, I just naturally gravitated to whichever team was nearest me – for this reason, I am both a Dallas Stars and a San Antonio Spurs supporter. In this fandom, which also includes an avid love of the Houston Astros, I’ve seen highs and lows. Mostly lows.
Nevertheless, I know what it’s like to be on top. The Spurs have won five National Basketball Association championships since my berth, and the Astros are the most recent World Series winners. With the Stars, however, I sink into a fandom hole.
I become somewhat of an honorary Dallasite. Sports fans from the city of Dallas and around the Metroplex feel little but misery and sorrow, with the Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks, Texas Rangers, and Stars having won one championship since the turn of the century. It’s bad up there.
The problem is: it’s not getting any better. It did, at one point, look as promising as ever in 2011, as the Mavericks knocked off LeBron James and the Miami Heat for the NBA championship, and the Rangers won their second-consecutive American League pennant. Those days are long gone.
Dallas Stars
All that’s saving the DFW sports scene from an unimaginable monsoon of tears and anger can be the Dallas Stars. And if you’re not a hockey fan, but are familiar with the team, now is the time to get into the coolest sport in the world (literally, I mean, it’s ice and all that). I’ll explain.
The Texas Rangers are at the very end of the championship potential window. Despite two World Series berths, four AL West titles, five postseason berths, and a “Game 163” appearance in 2013, the team is out of chances, evidently. The days of Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler are over, with Adrian Beltre soon joining them in post-Rangers lives.
Their farm teams from Triple-A to Class A Short Season finished below .500 as their prospective system is drained of quality talent. What’s worse is that they almost certainly will play second fiddle to the Astros in Texas baseball for the foreseeable. Baseball is awesome, but if you’re needing a boost, switch to hockey. Being a Stars fan is much more fun than being a Rangers fan , I would have to guess.
The Dallas Mavericks are in even worse shape, which is somewhat deliberate. The issue of the Mavericks tanking is that they’re so good at failing, that they have recently failed to fail. To recap, they have not tanked the way an NBA team should be tanking. The Mavs, in perhaps the final year of star big man Dirk Nowitzki’s career, are 8-23.
The Mavericks are very far from good, and soon without the cornerstone of their franchise for 20 years on the squad any more, it will be awhile until they can contend again. If you’re a Mavericks fan, trade in that Harrison Barnes or Yogi Ferrell jersey for an Alexander Radulov one at The Hangar. American Airlines Center plays hosts to a much more compelling team.
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The Dallas Cowboys are the most evolved of the aforementioned clubs, but still, every game from here on out is must-win, and our goal should be fun, not stress. Although Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott shine a light on the future at AT&T Stadium, you can’t build around just two players. Dez Bryant has lost a step, fan favorite Sean Lee is never 100% healthy, and future Hall-of-Famer Jason Witten is on his last leg.
Even if the Cowboys are relatively fun to watch, they are anything but relaxing to view. Especially with how hardcore the fanbase is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, every Cowboys loss feels like the end of the world. The Stars are far less stressful from a casual fan’s standpoint.
In recap, the Rangers are not bad yet, but they will be. The Mavericks are horrible and also horrible at being horrible. The Cowboys are borderline decent when healthy, but emotionally demanding. Exhaustion is not our goal, elation is; such is life as a sports fan.
Elation comes when you slip on a Victory Green sweater for the first time. The Dallas Stars have a strong prospect core of first-round picks at forward and great depth defensemen (not looking at you, Miro Heiskanen, you’re perfect) to go along with an elite team of superstars at the National Hockey League level already.
Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Alexander Radulov, John Klingberg, Ben Bishop, Julius Honka, Jason Spezza, Mattias Janmark, and a whole bunch of fascinating depth players light up the AAC 41 times a season. If you’re a casual fan, it comes with no stress and little expectations. If you’re a hardcore fan, we lose far less often than other Dallas teams, and winning comes in the most awesome of varieties.
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Rangers fans, Mavs fans, Cowboys fans, jump aboard. The bandwagon is wide open, but it’s in the form of the DART Orange Line to Victory Station. Come down and watch a Dallas Stars game live, or on television, and see the difference it makes compared to other sports.