Is Hockey in Fort Worth Possible?

[Royalsflagrunner77]

With the new Dickies arena under construction a couple articles mention seating for hockey was wondering if anyone heard if any league had plans to put a team in there

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[Barclay Donaldson]

With the new Dickies arena under construction a couple articles mention seating for hockey was wondering if anyone heard if any league had plans to put a team in there

Certainly not AHL. They’re now mostly near, owned, or both by their NHL team. Only team who would go Ft. Worth is Dallas, but they own and enjoy having their affiliate in Austin.

Can’t see the ECHL going for it either. They’ve been going into old AHL markets after the revolutionary Pacific division switch or markets with no hockey competition, like Jacksonville. Ft. Worth doesn’t match either since Allen Americans are about an hour away, Lone Star Brahmas are very close by, and Dallas is pretty close, too, while all three are well supported at the gate. The area hockey-wise if it’s not at saturation point, it’s getting close. There would have to be a dedicated ownership group with their act together and a bit of cash to burn for the ECHL to even think about it.

It’s not in the SPHL’s footprint, and no legitimate junior leagues are looking to expand right now.


The building will almost certainly not be home to a hockey team. Maybe a tournament or showcase, but the present state of hockey at all levels means the arena won’t be hosting much hockey.

 

[JMCx4]

I could find no authoritative web sources to confirm plans for inclusion of an ice plant @ Dickies, and I couldn't find any definitive evidence of one in the Dickies Arena construction web gallery. But I'll proceed with the assumption it will have permanent ice-making features for this hypothetical discussion.

The Arena architects' website lists a rodeo seating capacity of 9,000, so I presume any hockey seating capacity would be roughly that number. That puts an NHL team out of the question (not counting the proximity issue within the Dallas Stars' market), and IMO eliminates an AHL team due to typical infrastructure requirements (even without expectations that they would ever fill all those seats). The ECHL would almost certainly be hesitant to place another franchise in an arena where the rodeo would eliminate 1 month-plus of home dates per season. That leaves the SPHL (who have long been rumored to be considering westward expansion but would surely balk at the rodeo interruption as well) and junior hockey (Ft. Worth being outside the current USHL footprint & the local NAHL team seemingly very happy with their home arena site in North Richland Hills).

So I reckon hosting a hockey team of any importance & with any future @ Dickies is a non-starter. And I doubt the City of Fort Worth would shed any tears over such news.

 

[PCSPounder]

I walk into this knowing that there's more than one old WPHL team that was an exception to the rule I've found over time... but look what happened to the WPHL.

Ag buildings generally don't want ice plants. Even if that Ag building is talking about other spectator sports (my first experience with this was Yakima, WA, BTW)... generally, you'll see no ice plant.

If they're showing a hockey configuration in their ready-to-build design concepts, they're thinking about it. Despite the numbers of people on hfboards talking about how Sacramento could handle the sport when Golden 1 Center was being built, they never looked at everything the planners were showing to us. No rink was conceived. No hockey is considered... and that should have been evident when California State-Sacramento started talking about a new arena with hockey capability a couple years ago (which, BTW, that idea floated into the ether and has yet to resurface).

Now, if you find something in regards to Fort Worth, cool. If you got nothing, then nothing is probably the way to bet. And ask yourself why we seem to be encountering a number of arenas that don't give it a thought.

 

[mk80]

I don't think you'll see pro hockey in Fort Worth as others have said the Stars, Allen Americans, and Fort Worth Brahmas. Let's remember too while there were many issues involved, the Brahmas were also a pro team for a long period of time, and as I said many issues led to their eventual move to juniors, but ultimately they didn't make it at the pro level.