Watching the Caps in Texas

I moved back to NVA in 2002 after spending 17 years in DFW as a lonely Redskins/Caps fan, lived west of McKinney (off Custer & 380, if you are familiar). We didn’t have cable out there, so I bought a C-Band dish to watch the Caps. For a long time, they broadcast in the clear so we didn’t have to pay subscription fees for the regional sports networks. For local DC sports news, I’d go to the library in Plano during lunch to read the Washington Post, usually 3-4 days late, but better than reading nothing but Cowboys. Thank goodness for the intenet.

where to say hockey isn’t understood or appreciated would be a gross understatement

I don’t think you have to turn over too many rocks to find Stars fans out there. I was there in the late ‘90s when Dallas made their SC run. The atmosphere there was remarkably similar to DC now in terms of interest and enthusiasm (I was lucky enough to have a friend that was a STH, and got to go to game 5 of the Stars-Buffalo SC series). Keep in mind that there was no hockey infrastructure of consequence when the North Stars moved to Dallas in ’92. Not a single HS was playing hockey, and there were virtually no rinks. Within a few years, they built the Stars Centers all over the region. I think most of the major HS’s now have hockey programs, etc.

BTW, my favorite fan’s sign from the Stars-Sabres series “Hasek Zhitnik Shmelik”. I don’t think that one made it on TV.

Sorry, one other thing comes to mind. I assume that Randy Galloway is still publishing and doing sports talk - Man I wish he was here doing DC talk, he puts Czab & co. to shame. He became an early fan of the Stars and a self-proclaimed hockey expert - “I learned my hockey growing up on the frozen Trinity” The first time I heard that, with his thick Texas drawl, I almost wrecked the car.