Dallas Stars - Animations - http://maxpages.com/andrewland/Dallas

Two "Texas-Sized" Celebrations
By John Halligan
NHL.com

Derian Hatcher hoists the Stars first Stanley Cup Championship.

To a hockey player, there is no bigger thrill than winning the Stanley Cup. It has been the sport’s “Holy Grail” for 107 years. But add to that, a March 16 visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House, and you’ve got a double-barreled thrill of a lifetime worthy of a team from Texas, the Dallas Stars.

That there was a nine-month gap between winning the Cup and visiting with President Clinton (the visit was originally scheduled for last fall) was even viewed as a bonus for some. “It’s good to spread it out like this,” said Stars center Mike Modano. “Being champions for a year, that’s what it’s all about.” That and maybe making it two in a row.

Thirty-three years-old as a franchise (they were originally the Minnesota North Stars), the Stars are only in their sixth season in the Lone Star State, arriving for the 1993-94 season after 27 years in Minnesota, where the Stars had enjoyed a long, but less that glorious history.

There were early stars like goalies Gump Worsley and Cesare Maniago, defenseman Ted Harris and Barry Gibbs and forwards Bill Goldsworthy, Danny Grant, Jude Drouin, J.P. Parise and Dennis Hextall. For most of their first decade of existence, the North Stars would make the playoffs and miss the playoffs; make the playoffs and miss the playoffs. There was no real pattern of success.

By the end of the 1970s, Minnesota had a struggling hockey team, on the ice and off. It was a similar situation in Cleveland where the Barons were doing the same in suburban Richfield, Ohio. The two teams merged for the 1978-79 season, and the North Stars were on their way to respectability.

Stars like goalie Gilles Meloche, forwards Al MacAdam and Bobby Smith began to emerge. Smith was a first round choice in the 1978 Entry Draft, scored 30 goals in his first season and won the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year.

More importantly, the Stars began to rise in the standings. From 1979-80 to 1992-93, their last season in Minnesota, there were 11 playoff appearances in 14 years, including two magical trips to the Finals, in 1980-81 and 1990-91. The 1981 club, with Glen Sonmor behind the bench and long-time general manager Lou Nanne running the front office, ran into a juggernaut-a-building called the New York Islanders and were ousted in five games, winning only game -- number four at the Metropolitan Sports Center by a score of 4-2.

Home-grown center Neal Broten, right winger Dino Ciccarelli and left winger Brian Bellows were on board by now, adding with Smith to make the Stars a potent offensive force.

Broten would become the team’s all-time leader in seasons (16), games played (992), assists (593) and points (867). Ciccarelli and Bellows would share the all-time goal record for a single season, each with 55, and Smith would annex the most points in a single season with 114 in 1981-82.

In 1989, Minnesotans got a glimpse at their man of the future, a speedy center named Mike Modano, who was the team’s first round selection (number one overall) in the NHL’s 1988 Entry Draft. Modano scored 29 goals and 46 assists for 75 points, but lost out on the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year to 31-year-old Sergei Makarov of the Calgary Flames.

In 1990-91, despite finishing 12 games under .500 and in fourth place in the Norris Division, Minnesota sped through three playoff rounds by defeating Chicago and St. Louis, both four-games-to-two and then downed the Edmonton Oilers, four-games-to-one. The Stars’ surprising run matched against the Mario Lemieux-led Pittsburgh Penguins in the Finals for the Stanley Cup.

Goalie Jon Casey was a key for Minnesota as the teams split the first two games. Minnesota took Game 3 by a score of 3-1, but Lemieux and the Penguins rebounded with three straight triumphs, 5-3, 6-4 and 8-0.

Three years later, in 1993, the Stars were in Minnesota no longer, the team having been transferred to Dallas, where the word “North” was simply deleted from the nickname, and Texas had its first NHL team, the Dallas Stars. Bob Gainey, the team’s general manager and coach, made the move to Dallas a most successful one and the Texas-based Stars quickly became an NHL power.

Goalkeeper Eddie Belfour, defensemen Derian Hatcher, Richard Matvichuk, Daryl Sydor and Sergei Zubov and forwards Guy Carbonneau, Brett Hull, Joe Nieuwendyk, Jere Lehtinen, Jamie Langenbruner and Modano became as well known in Dallas as Goldsworthy, Grant, Gartner, Broten and the others had been in Minnesota. NHL hockey was in Texas to stay.

The Stars made the playoff five of their six seasons in their new home, the Reunion Arena. Midway through the 1995-96 season, Gainey brought in Ken Hitchcock as coach of the Stars, and he was an instant success, winning 48, 49 and 51 games in his first three full seasons at the helm.

Hitchcock presided over the magnificent run for the Stanley Cup last season. The Stars polished off Edmonton in four straight games; St. Louis, four games to two; and Colorado, four games to three to reach the Finals and a matchup with the Buffalo Sabres.

The Sabres and Stars were tied at two games apiece after four games, but Dallas captured Game 5 behind a Belfour shutout, 2-0. The Stars then took home the Cup with a 2-1 overtime win in Buffalo on Saturday, June 19, a date that will forever live in Dallas hockey history. Nieuwendyk captured the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs.

The Dallas Stars, born 32 years earlier nearly a continent away, were atop the hockey world. Nine months later they would be in Washington, at the White House, a place they wouldn’t mind re-visiting this year.

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Page Updated Sun May 14, 2000 7:38pm EDT