Stars Still Waiting for Season to Start

The NHL season finally started on Jan. 13, elating fans who have missed pro hockey since September.

Although it’s great to have hockey back, Dallas Stars fans still have to wait exactly one week from today, Jan. 15, for their team’s season to start.

News first broke that 6 Stars players and 2 staff members contracted Covid-19, shutting down training camp and postponing the first few games. As news progressed, it turns out that 17 players tested positive. After all of this, the Stars still have a set start date on the season.

The Stars will open their 2020-21 campaign at home against the Nashville Predators on Friday, Jan. 22. Here is a brief recap of the past few days and a preview of the upcoming season.

The first 4 games on the road against the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning were postponed to a later date because of these positive tests.

Now, 9 out of the final 11 games of the season are away contests. After finishing the home schedule against the Carolina Hurricanes on Apr. 27, They will go on the road for 7 games in 12 days.

Their flight schedule will have them going from Dallas>Nashville>Florida>Tampa Bay>Chicago>Tampa Bay. They also have a stretch of 3 games in 4 days in Sunrise, Florida against the Panthers. With the postponements, the Stars’ road schedule just got a lot tougher.

A staggering 17 players on the Stars contracted Covid-19. My previous article stated that it’s not the fans’ business to determine which players contracted it. One player already confirmed his diagnosis.

Goaltender Anton Khudobin said the following:

Anton Khudobin on what it was like to have COVID-19 and losing taste and smell for a month and a half. pic.twitter.com/D4HZTbQDN0
— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) January 12, 2021

Training camp resumed after the positive Covid-19 tests. The camp is closed to the media out of respect to the privacy of players. The reason why is because some players are still out. As previously mentioned above, players have every right to come out and say they had it but it is not in anyone’s business to seek out which players had it or blame them for it.

The Stars will be the final team to play their first game. They start their defending Western Conference Champions season a week from tonight on Jan. 22, against their rivals in the Predators. Hockey may be back for everyone else but Stars fans have to wait just a little bit longer. For the time being, 5,000 fans will attend each game at the American Airlines Center. The last Stars game at the AAC was on Mar. 10, 2020. Fans will welcome the team with open arms after 318 days of chaos.