In Texas, options for sports to play or watch have long been limited to the “Big Three” — football, baseball or basketball.
However, hockey has recently seen its own surge in popularity as local teams and youth leagues have begun to pop up in non-traditional markets across the country over the past 30 years.
Naturally, for most of its existence, hockey has been exclusive to colder regions. The sport didn’t expand into non-traditional markets, such as Texas, Florida and California, until the early ‘90s as a part of the National Hockey League’s Southern development.
Since the Dallas Stars won their first Stanley Cup in 1999, hockey in non-traditional markets has been on a consistent upward trend.
“Utah has a team now. Florida has won the last two cups … Dallas is one of the top teams in the Western Conference every year,” said Adam Powell, a travel hockey director and general manager for The Crossover. “So you have these non-traditional markets that are having success. And whenever there’s success, people want to do that sport.”
In addition to the NHL’s expansion, local teams also contribute to hockey’s Southern popularity by exposing new audiences to the sport.
The Texas Stars, Central Texas’ American Hockey League affiliate with the Dallas Stars, has seen its own popularity surge over the past decade. John Peterson, the Texas Stars’ director of broadcasting and media relations, said he was blown away by the amount of support the team already had when he joined the team in 2021.
“I expected it to be more of your traditional Southern market where there wasn’t a huge following, and I was dead wrong,” Peterson said. “That’s one thing about this area that I think can be misunderstood … You come to a game, and you realize — there’s almost 7,000 people in here every night cheering (the team) on.”
Youth leagues are another central contributor to the sport’s success, as they garner more kids and their families to become interested in hockey. The Austin Metro Hockey Association is a local group that manages youth leagues and provides equipment and scholarships to make hockey more accessible for communities.
“There’s not a single kid who’s wanted to play hockey and couldn’t afford it that we didn’t make it happen somehow,” AMHA president Ryan McMahon said.
However, this growth in Texas’ hockey market doesn’t come without its faults. In contrast to cities up north, where rinks are abundant, many teams in unconventional markets struggle to find ice to play on.
AMHA hockey director Angie Vaught said that despite the increased interest in their youth programs over the years, rink availability has constrained their organization’s capabilities.
“You can only sell so much ice. You can only have so many kids playing at a time,” Vaught said. “But every time a new rink gets built, we fill it, so it’s a pretty great thing.”
As more teams begin to pop up and new people continue to fill the rinks, hockey’s growth across non-traditional markets doesn’t seem to show any signs of slowing.
“I think USA hockey as a general body has done a very good job of increasing the appeal for hockey and making it a better system than it (has) been historically,” UT hockey team president Lucas Robins said. “Hopefully, it continues to grow, and especially in Austin, because I think it could be a very strong market.”
