When Nothing Else Matters

It's time for the 2025 Dallas Stars to really chase it, take it, and lift it - and it starts with Game 1 in Winnipeg. A series preview - looking forward - and back.

Mike Modano, June 20, 1999, Buffalo, NY

Players win games. Organizations win championships. And it’s time, again, for this organization to get it done.

The images from Saturday night inside the American Airlines Center showcased this formidable hockey team, urged on by an engaged and loyal fan base, seemingly all wearing Victory Green. It was insane in there.

That building, for hockey games, is an organism of its own now, like Reunion Arena was back when we first chased it. Home ice is a thing, especially in the playoffs. Stars Coach Pete DeBoer said as much after his team’s unlikely Game 7 win, suggesting this would not have been possible in Denver. They’re gonna need to win in Winnipeg.

Tom Gagliardi, with Jim Nill and Brad Alberts, are operating as good a sports organization that exists in North America. We got a real shot here.

I was there for the first one. You could feel it coming - a little bit - year by year. First was the new owner in 1995, Tom Hicks, who rescued us from distress and gave us the resources to get the assets.

Similarly, Tom Gagliardi pulled the club out from under bankruptcy, and has built a monster.

Then, in the late nineties, we got the right assets. And we got the coach. And every year we’d add a piece here and there. GM Bob Gainey, was. quiet, composed, and supportive.

Jim Nill, is quiet, composed, supportive - and a killer. Mikko is a coup. Mikko is Hullie. The biggest piece you could possibly add at the biggest time in your journey.

Back then we grabbed the market. The Metroplex, needed a team to latch on to in the late nineties. The Cowboys golden era had ended- and we saw continuing uncompetitive play from the Rangers and the Mavericks.

We were just the group to step in and take hold of all y’all.

And now, 26 years later, and following a similar timeline and blueprint, the Dallas Stars have arrived again. The Mavericks just committed suicide, the Rangers are figuring it out, and the Cowboys, well… we’ll see.

You don’t get so many shots like this. And the gods, at least for now, are winking in our direction.

But they also threw a little magic dust towards Winnipeg the other night, setting up a showdown between two teams believing this is their year - this is their time.

Only one moves on. And it might be the team that grabs Game 1.

I think it’s gonna be us. Because it’s all so familiar. Even the differences.