Dallas Stars Hockey Is Much Less Stressful Than Other DFW Sports

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.