By Bud Kennedy
bud@star-telegram.com
Nobody ever thought Oklahoma City was big enough for major-league sports.
But if the Thunder can rock that city all the way to the bank, so could the Dallas Stars in Fort Worth.
If I were new Stars owner Tom Gaglardi, I'd be watching the basketball playoffs very closely. The success and spirit we're seeing in Oklahoma City would be the welcome that pro hockey would find here.
"There is no question to me the Stars would flourish in Fort Worth as opposed to Dallas," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said Thursday by phone.
"That's not even a stretch. Look at St. Paul."
The Minnesota Wild succeeded there after the Minneapolis-based Stars struggled and moved to Dallas two decades ago.
Two owners, one Stanley Cup and one $267 million bankruptcy sale later, the Stars' new owner is a Vancouver, British Columbia, businessman from a Texas family with relatives in Fort Worth and Burleson.
I'm only playing what-if here. But if you know Gaglardi's cousins, tell them to remind him that the Stars would be better off in Fort Worth, or at least playing both in Dallas and in that hoped-for future Cultural District events center.
If Carolina or Nashville can support hockey, so could a county of 1.8 million people in a region of 6.5 million.
"Tarrant County definitely could do it," Cornett said.
"Fort Worth is a model for Oklahoma City in so many ways, and vice versa. At first, I had a tough time convincing anyone outside Oklahoma we had more than a college sports market. But there, you've got the whole metropolitan area."
Fort Worth's Will Rogers Coliseum was the site of Texas' first hockey game 71 years ago. In the 1970s and '80s, before the Stars, the various NHL farm clubs playing here often outdrew Dallas'.
Under original owner Norm Green, who came from Minnesota and understood "twin cities," the Stars pushed Tarrant County ticket sales and drew well from west of the county line. But Dallas investor Tom Hicks turned the team's marketing focus toward Plano and Collin County.
Overshadowed by the basketball Dallas Mavericks, the Stars averaged about 14,000 fans per game this season in the American Airlines Center. They have not made the playoffs in four years.
Maybe Gaglardi should look west.
Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538Twitter: @budkennedy
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