Hey, What Happened to Hockey?

• Re: hockey fans, Dallas Blackhawks, Ft. Worth Wings rivalry.......booster club bus rides in 1972 to other cities, etc. Perhaps moving the Stars out of that awful western division into a more centrally located division will generate more fans because TV games will start at a decent hour and game results will make the paper on time. Just wondering.

• But apparently not a friend of zac's.

• well what happen to hockey i can maybe shine some light the stars came here in 1993 there hopes were high and so was the money when they first came to town i was young but i rember my first stars game the smell of the ice the cheers from the crowd i will never forget it we started of really strong won the cup in 99 then after that it started to go down hill with hatcher and hull both left oh and we cant forget eddie the eagle how many people rember that one anyways ill admit that we have had a couple of good seasons but maybe in the last 3 we have done what dfw teams do best we start doing real good then we choke dont get me wrong i love the cowboys and the stars but come on guys we need to kick it in high gear to get the cheers back in the stands plus we cant forget who the stars have had in charge TOM HICKS LOL tom is all about the money he does not care about the fans and to me thats what makes a good team not the players the fans who were there in 99 who stayed up untill 2:30 am just to see brett hull score the game to me has faded because of the fans and also injurys without those hockey would still be going strong

• kinda strange how the two teams with the lowest attendance are both owned by the same person. HICKS has to go!!!!

• One of the things I have always liked about hockey is that its fans spend very little to no time worrying about what non-fans of the sport think about it.

• I knew the Stars were in trouble a few years ago when a friend who worked for WBAP (then the Stars Radio Home) said the amount of people who listen to the games according to Arbitron was negligible. The Ticket, which basically has no radio signal after 7:00, took the Stars after losing the Cowboys. I bet they shudder every time there is a East Coast game and it knocks the highly rated Hardline off an hour early.

• Richie, your comments got me thinking... Not saying that you're not serious about hockey, I know it's not your forte, but if your really are serious about bringing hockey up as a topic on your show, how about getting a true-to-form hockey nerd on once in a while. Maybe once a week hockey show? You'd be doing yourself and your audience a service by being an educator in this respect. You learn, your audience learns. Could be a fun ride... I know you are swimming upstream here, but you could probably get a media-friendly guy like Brent Severin, or a another retired hockey guy, like Bob Bassen, Bob Errey, Benoit Hogue, Guy Carboneau, Bob Gainey, or any other old-timer from the 99 Dallas Cup squad (or the likes there-of), to come on the air with you for a few minutes so you could rattle off ideas or get their takes on what's happening with the Stars and in the league (not just in Dallas). There are only a handful of guys still in the NHL who were on the cup squad, you'd have a big pond to fish guests from. You'd still have time to get something like that rolling, the Olympic break is coming up, teams will be gearing up for the playoffs soon. I'm just throwin' that out there for ya. I'd tune in and call in for it, if I knew it was gonna happen.

• DAMMIT! You mean I missed out on the sole opportunity to rant on the Fan and bring some heat concerning my team! DOUBLE DAMMIT! There goes my shot for this quarter. Sonofabitch! What you are saying then is that hockey really does rank somewhere below bowling and women's volleyball? It still has the reputation of being in the Big Four, but it doesn't even register on the sports radar in Dallas? We band of puckheads are relegated to being ignored. Gotcha. But, yeah, thanks for at least making the attempt.

• What you're saying gets into a different argument beyond what has happened to hockey, I think. The Fan's format is designed for lots of phone calls and feedback, so if people aren't aware of hockey to begin with, they're not going to discuss it on your show. And they're not aware because no one is taking the time to discuss it and inform them. Yeah, vicious circular logic there, I know. Don't take me as bashing The Fan, by the way. The format is just a different style that has its own positives and negatives. In general, though, the lack of visibility of hockey also plays a huge part of it. Locally, a combination of horrible TV deals, the lost season several years back, and the fact that so many Stars game start at 9pm or after on the west coast makes it tricky to follow, even if you are a fan (like myself). Thanks for asking, at least!

• For example, today we opened the phones to this blog item - "What happened to hockey in Dallas?" - on 105.3 the fan. talked about the trade, turco's contract, his last game in dallas, etc. Basically crickets. admitting i don't know a lot about hockey, i'm just saying it's not saying I don't like hockey. it's just not popular. Got tons more feedback about the mavs and Toyota and phobias and outer space.

• good point scott..now grab your shine box..

• It takes years for a fan following to develop for a new sport. How much talk focused on the Cowboys in 1910 around here?

• cactusflinthead sorta beat me to it, Richie. "in talking on the radio daily and trying to keep my finger on the pulse of Metroplex sports, the Stars rarely create a murmur, much less a buzz." That's because sports radio in this town never mentions the stars outside of BaD Radio and Razor with the Musers once a week. I would say that you and Newy, for example, don't know anything about hockey, but I can't say that because you never bring it up. Yes, people aren't calling into your shows to discuss hockey because it is never brought up as a topic. Chicken and egg kind of thing, ya know? My two favorite sports are baseball and hockey, and it drives me crazy year round because the preference of local hosts is obviously analyzing the flaws of JJ Berea or the backup practice squad right guard for the Cowboys that they drafted in 2007, ignoring a Rangers or Stars game the night before entirely. To be blunt, The Fan's format isn't going to change this. Open phones just gets the dumbest of the dumb on the air for the most obvious of obvious topics. Follow Dave's advice, bring up those topics on your shows once in a while, you might build something that virtually no one else is doing.

• I heard Norm say one time back when the Stars were actually winning and the Cowboys were the suck that if he had a segment on hockey then 95% of his audience would leave. I suspect he just pulled those numbers out of his ass, but he might be right. When they were winning you couldn't get hardly anybody to talk about them on the radio and now....crickets. It doesn't help that most radio talking heads don't give a damn about hockey. It doesn't help that outside of the Blackhawks and FW teams back in the day there is little history of hockey in the area. (One of my first sports experiences was at the Fair Park Coliseum watching the Blackhawks) However, the Stars have a rabid, dedicated fan base. I will continue to watch and attend. I read blogs and sites that comment and carry news on the game and watch "NHL on the Fly" and HNIC(It is still a source of hilarity to me that acronym exists north of the border and they have no clue as to its other version). I don't really give a shit if the rest of DFW likes or dislikes hockey. If the owner can't figure out how to make money on this team, then he needs to sell. Personally, I hope they suck all the rest of this year and we get a decent draft pick. Look at what Sid the Kid has done for Pitt. The Crapitals are finally beginning to coalesce around Ovechkin. Let's face it, the Stars are going through changes. The days of this owner going out and getting high-priced free agents is over. They are going to have to play the kids for a while and that tends to mean a downturn in performance in the short term which tends to mean a decreased turnout in the stands. If RW doesn't care about hockey any more and Newy never did and Norm avoids it like the plague what hope is there of getting any sort of discussion of it on the radio outside of Sturm and Razor's weekly visit? About as much chance as scott joining Greenpeace. The cocaine and boob-job crowd will show back up when they start winning again.

• I meant strike in 04, misstype my bad

• poor richie writes for a weekly paper which only survives due to call girl ads & talk on a station that has 17 listeners.

• Yeah, I remember the Dallas Blackhawks. A friend of mine I was in grade school with back in the 70's, brought a Dallas Blackhawks puck to school one day for show and tell. We were all ooing and ahhing over it. All we had to play was football, baseball and soccer. Now, most school districts have ice hockey programs, even at elemetary level (even the ones in the sticks). Nevermmind the fact that they have to drive (be driven) an hour to get to a rink... At least it's an option now. Wish we could've played here when we were kids.

• @ Dave from Acquisitions = too bad you don't recall the turnpike rivalry between the Dallas Blackhawks and those thugs from Out West....Fair Park Coliseum and 25cent beer night with those 2 teams = mayhem on ice and in the stands. I was a wee boy, but oh!, the memories....I've been a proud Dallas hockey fan since 1972!!! So, Richie, as O.R.A. says, just leave it alone....

• The reason no caller brings it up on 105.3 The Fail is because you guys follow the Cowboys and still have no effing clue what you're talking about. I could only imagine how stupid you would sound talking about a sport, and a team you know nothing about. You just keep over there in your corner watching tennis and curling, leave the man sports to us.

• Meh, that Duncanville StarsCenter was jinxed anyway. I dislocated my shoulder twice on that ice back in 2001, had a reconstruction as a result, started skating elsewhere (Plano and ITC). Never looked back. Don't worry Richie, you'll jump on board once the team starts winning, creating a buzz, once the owner flees town and new ownership settles in. Heads will probably roll. Faces will change, yet again. Talk about the ownership prospects, look at what they've done in other cities with other teams. Talk about Marty's contract, or lack there of (come the end of the season). He's at the end of his contract extension, unless he wants to extend it yet again, he needs to buck up and get on a roll, and lower that GAA whenever possible. Talk about how the state of Texas has (had) more hockey teams than any other state in the country. Talk about the guys in the farm clubs. Says alot about culture in the state, warming up to something still relatively new to Texas. I'm 40 this year, we didn't have hockey growing up in Dallas, this is a real treat to see kids and parents embracing the sport. There's your talk-show fodder. If you think it's a problem that there's currently little buzz about hockey in North Texas, then be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

• totally agree w/ rooster. Owners that continually rob from their team to pay for their jet/helicopter fuel/city water bill eventually end up having to sell it all.

• It's the same as the Rangers.... When the owner doesn't care about winning, the people don't care about lining his pockets. Put a new owner in place that is serious about fielding a team that can contend, and people will care again.

• twas his date Mark Perez, he wasn't name dropping...

• "Went to the game with Troy Aikman..." figures you would do the name drop thing

• Lockout in 94 + Less winning = Disinterested CASUAL hockey fan. As a die hard Stars fan, it stinks that the attendance at these games is down, but at least I get better seats this year than previous yrs. When the Stars get a new owner and when they make another deep run in the playoffs, this town will go nuts for the Stars again. Remember the days when you would see stars flags flying out the windows of cars

• Hicks is full of crap. He's been bleeding the Stars (and Rangers) to subsidize his other holdings. The reason you and other local radio hosts don't get Stars calls is simple - no one in this market knows hockey and are very proud of their ignorance of the sport. That's why we listen to Sirius/XM for hockey talk and blogs for information.

• How would the bottom rated sports talk station in this city be able to give you the pulse of anything? So what if the 17 people that actually listen to 105.3 The Fail dont mention the Stars? The Station of record for the Stars, and every other team for that matter, is the Ticket. Of course the Stars, Mavs, & Rangers all play second fiddle to the Cowboys.

• Its a simple equation in this city. Wins = people in the seats. This is no secret.

• It's soccer on ice. Kids like to play it, but nobody really watches it.

• They copied the other teams' blueprints in this city by repeatedly crashing and burning.

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