Tom Gaglardi, who acquired the NHL’s Dallas Stars out of bankruptcy last year, is aiming to revitalize the Stars as a young, super-fast team without legendary names. (Jamie Benn, anyone? Loui Eriksson?) But one big name Gaglardi would like to see throw in with the franchise is Mike Modano, who hung up his skates last year after two standout decades with the Stars. “Mike’s got a standing offer from us” to join the team in the front office, Garglardi said Friday during a get-acquainted visit to D World Headquarters. “Hopefully he acts on that.” So, what’s the holdup? Modano’s still grappling with retirement, Gaglardi explained — and may even be considering playing again.
Gaglardi, a Canadian businessman who owns hotels and restaurants, and Jim Lites, the Stars’ president and CEO, who also visited D, conceded that Dallas is a “tarnished brand” in the wake of former owner Tom Hicks’s tenure. But they see the team turning around in less than three years. Their goals on the business side: putting “18,000 [fans] in the building” every game, and climbing to eighth or ninth place (from 26th currently) in the league in terms of gate revenue. Premier suite sales at American Airlines Center have picked up dramatically in recent months, they added, as the Stars continue to battle for a Western Conference playoff spot. Gaglardi’s spending about a third of his time these days trying to make all this happen, recently snapping up a condo at the W Residences in Victory Park.
Watch this video of an 18-wheeler flipping onto a car on the Dallas North Tollway yesterday.
Then read Patrick Kennedy’s column (from our March issue) about how traffic engineers sacrifice safety in favor of speed.
Why are we not all agoraphobes?
Whatever your weekend plans entail, make sure brunch is on your list. The fine folks at D did a whole lot of eating to bring you 24 of the best hangover helpers in town.
Friday
The weekend is making me curse the day I gave up ballet class for good. Not only does the Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Cultural Awareness series (which I talked about yesterday) continue at the Wyly, but the Texas Ballet Theater is performing a two-day run of artistic director Ben Stevenson’s Dracula at the Bass Hall in Fort Worth. The gothic tale concerns a famously seductive vampire not named Spike or Angel who lures his beautiful victims into becoming mobile blood donation centers. He has 18 brides already, but he’s after one more– a lovely innocent named Flora. It all shapes up to an evening of bad romance, but please, no biting.
This Sunday, the 84th Academy Awards will take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and to celebrate the movieland version of the Kentucky Derby, we’ll be making predictions, offering up armchair opinions, talking celebrities, sounding off on the red carpet antics, and taking swipes at the official coverage and commentary with a live blog. We may even throw out a few drinking game suggestions. Â So join us here.
When I peeked at my inbox this morning while brushing my teeth, I found that someone (Rod Davis) pointed out something we had missed this week – Frank Hernandez, Dallas County’s first hispanic judge, passed away last Thursday of a heart attack at the age of 73.
Since the obit is behind a Dallas Morning News paywall, I’ll give the Reader’s Digest condensed version. Hernandez was known nationally as a civil rights attorney. As the DMN points out:
“He helped desegregate the Dallas schools, school board and city council. His far-reaching victories included helping persuade Children’s Television Workshop, the producers of PBS’ Seasame Street, to included (sic) Spanish-surnamed Americans on the show. He also founded the Vistas Latin Film Festival in Dallas.”
1976, he was appointed by the commissioner’s court to fill a vacancy at Dallas County Court-at-Law No. 3, and he was sworn in early the next year. He lost his election bid in 1978.
He continued to practice law until the week before he died, his family told the News. The family will receive friends beginning at 6 p.m. tonight at Restland Funeral Home in Dallas, with a rosary being recited at 7:30 p.m. Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Restland.
Picky, Picky. You know what happens when you bring the wrong toothpicks (seriously, there’s a right kind of toothpick?) to your engineering class? Something kind of like this, apparently.
Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave … when first we practice to deceive the cops by giving them our little brother’s name when pulled over for an alleged DWI and then later he is accused of killing someone.
Fourth Meal, Indeed. Police tracked a pickup truck from the Mexico border to an Arlington Taco Bell (seriously, there’s a run for the border joke happening there somewhere). The truck had much liquid meth ($10 million worth, to be exact) in its fuel tank. I’ve gotta ask, though: Uh, was the truck on a trailer? And also, with all the other crap used to make meth, would you notice fuel residue in your crystal meth?
Poor Timmy. Yeah, this might just be a thing. What will become of this, though?
Moment of Zen. It’s been a long week, and just in time for the weekend comes some stupid weather (or, rather, less perfect weather than we had for the past two days). So apropos of nothing, I give you this moment of Zen. Unless you hate babies. In that case, you should click this instead.