Dust off the skates and loosen up the muscles. It’s time for a new season of Dallas Stars hockey! With it, a new season here at Defending Big D.
Much like the Dallas Stars saw some additions in the offseason, we have also made some moves. Defending Big D is happy to announce the following free agent signings:
*Shawn Ladd joins us as a daily links contributor. He’s a current Texas Stars season ticket holder, an Air Force veteran, and a father of three boys and two girls. When not writing about the Dallas Stars, he enjoys watching the future develop down in Cedar Park.
*Mike Albanese joins us as a feature writer/game day writer. A former reporter for both a daily and weekly newspaper, Mike has covered sports and news for five-plus years. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 2011 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in communication studies. While at Alabama, Mike played for their club hockey team. Living in the Dallas area, Mike has been playing hockey since he was five years old — and is still playing to this day.
*Jordan Dix joins us as a feature writer. Jordan has covered the Dallas Stars for the past two seasons for The Hockey Writers and Blackout Dallas, and is looking forward to bringing interesting content and analysis to this incredible community of writers and fans at Defending Big D. He’s also done a lot of analytical work on general managers in the NHL and Dallas is certainly fortunate to have one of the more interesting GMs to analyze in Jim Nill. A current resident of Oklahoma City, Jordan hopes to catch many games in person this season. He’s excited to interact with you all for what should be a successful and entertaining season in Dallas.
Additionally, we’ve brought on a few new fresh eyes in the moderator group. We hope this acts as a kind of “reset” within the community. At the end of the day, we’re all Stars fans and want the same thing. We may not see eye-to-eye on how that looks, what it will take to get there, or the personnel that is or isn’t going to help accomplish the end goal of winning the Stanley Cup. But that’s no reason to be disrespectful to one another, whether that’s community member-to-community member, community member-to-staff, or staff-to-community member.
As of now, we’ve all got a fresh sheet of ice to skate on. Let’s not muck it up too much.