1967-1993: Minnesota North Stars
In 1978, the North Stars merged with the Cleveland Barons (formerly the California Golden Seals), owned by George III and Gordon Gund. With both teams on the verge of folding, the league permitted the two failing franchises to merge. The merged team continued as the Minnesota North Stars, while the Seals/Barons franchise records were retired. However, the Gunds were the merged team’s principal owners, and the North Stars assumed the Barons’ place in the Adams Division to balance out the divisions. The merger brought with it many talented players, and the North Stars were revived – they reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1981, where they lost in five games to the New York Islanders. However, by the early 1990s, declining attendance and the inability to secure a new downtown revenue-generating arena led ownership to request permission to move the team to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1990. The league rejected the request and instead agreed to award an expansion franchise, the San Jose Sharks, to the Gund brothers. The North Stars were sold to a group of investors that were originally looking to place a team in San Jose, although one of the group’s members, former Calgary Flames part-owner Norman Green, would eventually gain control of the team(1). In the following season, the North Stars made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, only to lose to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
After the 1990-1991 season, the North Stars suffered through declining profits coupled with distractions and uncertainty caused by relocation attempts. The team’s fortunes were further impeded by the terms of the settlement with the Gund brothers, in which they were permitted to take several North Stars players to San Jose. In their final two seasons in Minnesota, the team adopted a new logo that omitted any reference to the word “North” from “North Stars”, leading many fans to anticipate the team heading south(2). Green explored the possibility of moving the team to Anaheim to play at a new arena (which is now the Honda Center) under construction(3) and intended to call them the Los Angeles Stars. However, in 1992 the league decided to award an expansion franchise to The Walt Disney Company to play in Anaheim’s new arena, this franchise eventually became the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
1993-1998: relocation and early years in Dallas
In 1993, amid further attendance woes and bitter personal controversy, Green obtained permission from the league to move the team to Dallas, from the 1993-1994 season, with the decision announced on March 10th, 1993(4). Green was convinced by former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach that Dallas would be a suitable market for an NHL team(2). With the team’s move to the Southern United States, Green decided to drop the “North” adjective but otherwise retained the “Stars” nickname, which in its shortened form quickly proved popular as it matched the state of Texas’ official nickname as “The Lone Star State.” An NHL franchise in Dallas was an experiment for the league, as at that time the Stars would become one of the three southernmost teams in the league along with two recently created expansion teams in the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers as the league’s first real ventures into southern non-traditional hockey markets. The Stars would move in Reunion Arena, built in 1980, the downtown arena already occupied by the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Dallas Mavericks.
To quell the ensuing controversy surrounding the North Stars move to Dallas, the NHL promised that the Twin Cities would receive an expansion franchise shortly; that promise was fulfilled in 2000 in the form of the Minnesota Wild.
With the league changing the names of the conferences and divisions that season, the newly-relocated Stars were placed in the Central Division of the Western Conference, although these teams were essentially continuations of the Norris Division and Campbell Conference respectively, both of which the North Stars had been part of. The first NHL game in Dallas was played on October 5th, 1993, and was a 6-4 win against the Detroit Red Wings(5). Somewhat ironically, Minnesota native Neal Broten scored the first Stars goal in Dallas. Though the Stars were relatively still low on the Dallas-Fort Worth sports pecking order upon their arrival, the popularity of the team grew rapidly and the immediate success of the team on the ice, as well as Mike Modano’s career-best season (50 goals, 93 points) helped spur the team’s popularity in North Texas. The Stars set franchise bests in wins (42) and points (97) in their first season in Dallas, qualifying for the 1994 playoffs. The Stars further shocked the hockey world by sweeping the St. Louis Blues in the first round but lost to the eventual Western Conference Champion Vancouver Canucks in the second round. The Stars’ success in their first season along with Modano’s spectacular on-ice performances, would be an integral part of the Stars’ eventual franchise success in the immediate years to come
The almost immediate success of the Stars was also helped by the long legacy of minor-league hockey in the area. Both incarnations of the Central Hockey League (CHL) had two teams in the area, the Dallas Black Hawks and the Fort Worth Texans (CHL) for years before the Stars’ arrival. The two teams were bitter rivals, and some of the traditions and famous rivalry incidents, including what is thought to be the first known use anywhere at an athletic event of “Rock and Roll Part 2” by the Fort Worth Texans and the famous “10 Cent Beer Night” near-riot in 1978 helped create awareness of hockey. Amateur and youth hockey in North Texas were also extremely popular because of the long presence of the minor league teams.
1. Cameron, Steve (1994). Feeding Frenzy! The
Wild New World of the San Jose Sharks.
Taylor Publishing Co. pp. 29–38.
2. “The 35 Biggest Moments in Modern Dallas
History” Dmagazine.com Archived from the
original on May 20, 2011. Retrieved
September 16, 2011
3. Dillman, Lisa; Stephens, Eric; Cooper, Josh.
“How the Mighty Ducks took flight, an oral
history” The Athletic. Archived from the
original on May 2, 2022. Retrieved
May 2, 2022.
4. "Patrick Plus: Thanks, Norm Green". Star
Tribune. Archived from the original on April
19, 2016.
Retrieved April 14, 2016.
5. “Dallas Stars First Game October 5, 1993
Broten Goal” St. Cloud Times. October 6,
1993. P. 19. Archived from the original on
August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
