What makes home ice an advantage?
There’s the obvious ones on the ice. The advantage of last line change, so the coach can match his lines up against the opposing teams. The home team center gets the advantage of putting his stick down last for faceoffs. Home teams can choose who shoots first in the shootouts.
But there’s one things that members of the team and coaching staff cannot control that can give added emotion and motivation to the home team — the crowd.
That’s where we as fans can impact the team that we all hold near and dear the most.
It surely is a disheartening feeling coming into your own home arena and seeing just as many opposing jerseys as home jerseys. Fans are always complaining about how there’s a lot of Penguins/Hawks/Red Wings/etc. fans when those teams play here in Dallas. Well, it’s time to stop getting mad about it and start getting even on that front.
Here’s my three keys to fan success for tomorrow night’s tilt against the new Central division rivals, which I know you’ll all be attending to welcome home the streaking Stars, right?
Wear your Victory Green. You all fought so darned hard and made your voices clearly heard about how you wanted green as your main color. The Stars did what you wanted. Now go out and OWN your team’s color. If you don’t have your Victory Green yet, the Dr Pepper Stars’ centers in Euless, Farmers Branch, Frisco and McKinney are open until 10 PM tonight and open again at 9 AM tomorrow. They’ll help you get outfitted before you head down to the AAC. Women’s jerseys, which I know have been hard to come by, can be found at the AAC fan store as of last night! And they look awesome:
These three beauties have traveled to Los Angeles and Anaheim already this season and can be spotted around the AAC most home games.
Be loud. All game long. Not just at the beginning, or when the Stars give you something to cheer about. Your excitement will rub off on the team and then they’ll work even harder to get you that goal to cheer about. YELL YOUR LUNGS OUT! But remember to keep it classy — let the scoreboard do the all the talking.
Be there. And I don’t mean just physically there. Put your phones down — texting/reading/tweeting is what intermissions are for. The more you get into the game the better time you’ll have at the AAC and the more motivation the Stars will get feeding off of your energy.
If you don’t have your tickets, not to worry! There are still some left in each of the following areas and you can get them all right here. Also — you can’t beat $11 to get into the game so what’s stopping you?!
East Terrace – $11 game day (starting at 10 AM, online or at the AAC box office only)
Terrace – $35
Terrace Preferred – $54
Platinum – $99
Plaza – $92
Gold – $145
Even better, find 15 or more people — you don’t even have to know them to take advantage of this deal — then call the wonderful Groups team at 214-GO-STARS and you can get Terrace seats for $30/each ($5 saving + savings of Ticketmaster fees) or Plaza seats for $80/each ($12 saving + savings of Ticketmaster fees.)
Find yourself going to multiple home games already this year after buying individual game tickets? Why not call 214-GO-STARS as well and get yourself a season ticket plan? You’ll also guarantee your seat at the Mike Modano jersey retirement on March 8, 2014 at the season ticket holder price. Perusing the resale market, I can tell that you really don’t want to go that route. Still not sold on the idea? I’m saving about $30 per game off the gate price through my season tickets. Trust me….it’s so worth it.
Hope to see you all out tomorrow at the AAC. I’ll be there, rowdy, loud and proud in section 113 rocking my Victory Green Tyler Seguin 91 jersey.
Let’s Go Stars!