The Dallas Stars will hold their annual “Ice Breaker” on Saturday. And, lemme guess, they’ll stage their annual “Heatbreaker” come April? 'Twas five months ago the Stars bowed out of the ’07 NHL Playoffs with a Game 7, first-round loss in Vancouver. Hmm, that’s weird. Feels more like five minutes ago. Probably because Dallas’ premature evacuations from the post-season happen every damn season.
Don’t know about you, but with the Cowboys kicking off Sunday I’m having an awfully tough time getting jazzed about a newly hitched Mike Modano, a year-older Sergei Zubov and a status-quo coach, Dave Tippett, making yet another run at getting this thing right. At least the Stars will again get off to a nice start. As an appetizer to the start of next week’s training camp, the team will converge on The Galleria Saturday with player autographs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and skating with the Ice Girls until 2 p.m. Players, coaches and even broadcaster Ralph Strangis will be on hand to convince us that 0no, really, this year will finally be different than last year, or the year before, or the year before. Invest emotionally at your own peril. If nothing else, show up, donate some plasma to event co-sponsor Carter BloodCare and walk away with a cool T-shirt that reads “Give Blood, Play Hockey.” Oh, yeah, and wake me up in April. --Richie Whitt
