The Modano Era (1998–2008)

Lore & Background

The Stars were founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Minnesota North Stars, based in Bloomington, Minnesota. Before the 1978–79 NHL season, the team merged with the Cleveland Barons after the league granted them permission due to each team's respective financial struggles. The franchise relocated to Dallas for the 1993–94 NHL season and was renamed the Dallas Stars. The Stars have won nine division titles in Dallas, two Presidents' Trophies as the top regular season team in the league, the Western Conference championship three times, and the Stanley Cup in 1999, when center Joe Nieuwendyk won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. Over the course of the franchise's history in both Minnesota and Dallas, the team has appeared in the Stanley Cup Final five times (1981, 1991, 1999, 2000, and 2020).

In Their Own Story

The arena hums with a low, almost subsonic vibration—the kind that lives in the sternum before the first puck drop. It's a Tuesday in March, 2008, and the ice is freshly resurfaced, gleaming under the white floodlights like a frozen lake at midnight. Modano laces his skates in the tunnel, the rubber soles squeaking faintly against the concrete. He doesn't look up when the crowd noise swells. He's done this a thousand times. But tonight the noise is different; it's not the roar of a playoff push or the electric crackle of a Cup celebration. It's something slower, heavier. A farewell dressed as a regular Tuesday. He grips his stick, feels the familiar give of the tape wrapped around the blade, and steps through the players' tunnel onto the ice. The boards are cold against his skates. The puck sits in the faceoff circle, black and round and patient. He drops his shoulder, plants his skates, and for one long breath the whole decade—'99, the long wait, the return, the small victories and the long losses—compresses into the simple, holy act of pulling the puck back and setting it for the faceoff. The horn will sound. The crowd will rise. And then, for one more night, he'll be the Stars.

Reader's Guide

The Stars moved to Dallas for the 1993–94 season. Mike Modano is the highest-scoring player in franchise history. The team won the Stanley Cup in 1999. Key Hall of Fame inductees include Brett Hull (2009), Ed Belfour and Joe Nieuwendyk (2011), and Mike Modano (2014).

Did You Know?

• The Stars were originally the Minnesota North Stars, founded in 1967.
• The team merged with the Cleveland Barons in 1978.
• The Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999.
• Mike Modano is the highest-scoring player in franchise history.