Let's open a conversation about the Dallas Stars, youth hockey, and the USA Today story

I don't have answers here, but I wanted to get some of my thoughts out in the open on this.

There was a story in USA Today on Friday morning taking a deeper look at how amateur hockey works in the Dallas/North Texas area.

The story, which is the result of a months-long investigation, featured USA Today speaking with more than 100 sources and reviewing property records, business filings, contracts, tax returns, court records, emails and internal documents, paints a picture of the Stars as a bully controlling the sport.

The story also comes soon after a story was published in late March by USA Today about the Stars, titled, “'They'll hold you over a barrel': How NHL team's execs milked youth hockey families for profit.” That story in late March detailed how multiple former Stars employees profited off a stay-to-play scheme connected to Stars-run youth hockey tournaments.

The reporter who wrote both those stories, Kenny Jacoby, was also a guest on the Spits & Suds podcast Friday, where he detailed more of the backstory behind the story — for example, how the Stars turned down interview requests initially, and then made a couple executives available for less than an hour once getting a summary of some of the claims.

I’ve re-read both of those stories multiple times and listened to that podcast before writing this piece.

And for full transparency, I wasn’t sure how I was or wasn’t going to write about this. I was traveling Friday for another work commitment, I actually read the USA Today piece on the plane, and didn’t have the time to properly sit down with my thoughts on it until Sunday evening.

I also think Robert Tiffin did a good job providing some nuance on Friday about the complicated cost of growing hockey in non-traditional markets.

The Complicated Cost of Growing the Game

So bear with me as we try and unpack this story, which also got largely buried in the DFW landscape because soon after it was published in USA Today the Dallas Cowboys best defensive player requested a trade.

I think first I need to establish a couple things, again for full transparency.

• I don’t live in North Texas anymore, I don’t have hands-on experience anymore with amateur hockey down there. While I play beer league in Michigan and my daughter player hockey, I can’t be considered a so-called “expert” on how things currently work on the day-to-day of amateur hockey in DFW.

• Stars management, as you can imagine, isn’t very happy with this story. Stars owner Tom Gaglardi was also already on the record back in April that the first USA Today story “was really flawed, quite honestly.”

• I don’t know Kenny Jacoby, we’ve never spoken before. It’s also hard for anyone to judge his work one way or the other having not put in the work themselves, and this was a project that’s been in the works for most of 2025.

So with those facts established, I think we can get into the crux of what I’m trying to do here: let’s open a larger conversation about this, while adding some additional questions and/or context to at the same time.

For starters, hockey is really expensive. I’m about to sign my daughter up for her season of 8U hockey here in Michigan and it’s going to cost us $1,150 in just registration fees.

The equivalent program the Stars run for kids 8-and-under costs $1,399 in registration fees.

In Michigan, costs go up with age. For example it’s around $2,000 in registration fees for the 14-and-under house program here. The programs the Stars run offer the same registration cost at all ages from 8-and-under and above at the house league level, again that’s $1,399.

Those are just registration fees for house league — not the elite teams — and when you start to account for equipment, travel, and other things, you start to see why hockey is a sport that requires significant financial investment even at the “recreational” level.

This isn’t a defense of the Stars, but I think that’s one thing story-wise, was missing from the USA Today piece. The Stars programs may be expensive, but how does that compare side-by-side with similar markets? What’s happening in Carolina or Florida or Los Angeles?

The USA Today piece also talked about prices rising from season-to-season, which is concerning, but is also reflective of the overall landscape of amateur hockey.

In many ways, one of my first thoughts on how the Stars run amateur hockey when it comes to cost is this — is the setup in North Texas an amateur hockey disease? Or a symptom of the larger problem with the entire sport?

Both can be true, but it’s worth thinking about, because for me a lot of it feels like the latter. Hockey fandom may technically be for everyone, but participation is for anyone with the financial means.

OK, now let’s talk about the part of the story that highlights how the Stars worked to limit dissent on social media, including monitoring local Facebook groups and threatening those who made negative posts, and in some cases banning individuals from playing at Stars rinks.

The Stars, in responses in that story, have said those claims aren’t true.

Whether those claims are true or not, I will say from my personal experience the Stars organization has been too sensitive in the past to social media comments. Historically speaking, there’s been some pretty heavy monitoring on those channels, probably more so than a multi-billion dollar entity should be worrying about.

The story also talks about the Stars using ice time as a weapon, allegedly bullying members of local organizations into the current setup where the Stars organization has more control of coaching decisions.

Again the Stars deny these claims, or at least the severity of the situation. I’ve also spoken to people who have either worked with or have kids playing in for the Stars organizations who have acknowledged a power dynamic at play that doesn’t always feel super comfortable. But, it should be noted, I’ve also spoken to people who are in similar spots who rave about how the Stars run things.

I think it’s also important to note that any shot at the Stars youth hockey efforts to grow the game is going to be received poorly by the team. The Stars as an organization are very proud of what they’ve built in Texas, and in many ways the Stars are the model other NHL teams have emulated. USA Hockey officials also continuously enjoy working with the Stars for both youth and international tournaments.

The youth and amateur hockey scene in Dallas also largely exists because of the Stars efforts dating back to the early 1990s to grow the sport. They do control the market, but it’s also because they helped create the hockey market in the first place.

I’m not here to say whether that’s right or wrong, but I think it’s important to keep that in mind when you look at the scope of the situation and how we got here. The Stars, for example, having a large presence on the Texas Amateur Hockey Association board is almost something you’d expect when you look at the simple landscape of hockey in the state.

There’s a ton of nuance to this, and I’m not here to pretend I have all the answers. I can’t judge one way or the other without more information, and more information requires time and potential reporting.

So understandably, I can’t give a real conclusion on this, not without doing my own work. But I did want to open up this space for conversation about the topic for any readers that wanted to chat more about it before any of that additional work has been done.