The Dallas Stars were eliminated last night in a tough 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues in a game that went into Double Overtime. As a Stars fan, the loss stung, of course. But after the squad and I finished screaming, angrily, in our Twitter group chat. I sat back and looked at the season the Stars had this year.
This season has been the best of my life.
At the start of this season, Ham Sports was born. I began writing about hockey here because I had no friends that wanted to talk about hockey. It became one of the best decisions I had ever made. My first blog was about how I thought the Stars would do during the season, already I was excited just to write about the team that meant so much to me. My friends and family have been so supportive when it comes to sports writing and that means everything.
At the time I had a Wix site so every blog wasn’t saved in the transfer to WordPress but the first few were. I gained confidence as a writer and soon decided to venture out.
Once again, another great idea.
I applied at Dallas Stars Nation and was accepted in as a blogger. My first day, October 16th, 2018, I met another writer named Adrienne and she has become one of my closest friends! Not only that but she’s helped me grow as a writer and I owe her a lot for that. Stars Nation has been not only great for my development as a blogger, but it has introduced me to an amazing group of friends that I was searching for when I started Ham Sports. Collectively, the squad of Craig, April, Kari, Adrienne, and I have grown so close with our love for the Stars and they’ve helped me so much.
During this season I also went to a number of games. I was able to go to Dallas in October and watch the Stars absolutely murder the Anaheim Ducks. Not to mention I got two sweater at the game, one Tyler Seguin and one for my favorite player Jamie Benn. The atmosphere in the AAC was fantastic as well.
I got to see the Stars once more in Chicago on February 24th. Shoutout to Tyler Seguin for chucking a puck over the boards to me. That game was Mats Zuccarello’s first as a Star and he was fantastic!
More importantly, the Stars have been resilient this season. It always sucks to see their season end but you’ve got to admit that they’ve been great. The Stars went 13-10-3 through the first 2 months of the season.
December was infuriating for us all. The Stars play was good, a 7-6-0 record with 34 goals for and 33 against. What was infuriating was a loudmouth big wig making unnecessary comments to the media (forever salty) but once again the team was resilient. Tyler and Jamie proved what real leader are by staying classy and leading their team in an absolute thrashing against the Detroit Red Wings. And from there, the team took off.
They have young talent that’s just starting to blossom. Players like Miro Heiskanen (give him the fucking Calder), Roope Hintz, Jason Dickinson, and Esa Lindell that are just hitting their prime.
The Stars picked up some players that made a big impact on the season: Mats Zuccarello, Ben Lovejoy, Blake Comeau, Andrew Cogliano, Roman Polak, Anton Khudobin.
The Stars have solid leaders, like Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Ben Bishop, and John Klingberg to push this team to their limits. Don’t go dogging on them, they still produce and what they do behind the scenes is more important for the team as a whole.
We will see big moves this off season. A number of Stars are up for UFA but there’s high hopes that some will resign. Overall, this season has been fantastic. A group of warriors that went from a low place in December to the top of the World and giving their fans an entertaining playoff series into the 2nd Round.
SO thank you, Dallas Stars for a hell of a ride. Can’t wait for next season.
Featured Image: Myself
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