A sampling of Dallas Morning News coverage of the first NHL game in Dallas between the Edmonton Oilers and Detroit Red Wings at Reunion Arena on Sept. 30, 1986.
Dallas Morning News archives
When Wayne Gretzky made his first trip to Dallas, he was most concerned about whether the Texas heat would melt the ice.
He wondered, too, whether he and his Edmonton Oilers teammates might get stuck in the folding chairs they were using as a bench at Reunion Arena when they hopped over the boards.
It never crossed the Great One’s mind that he’d return to Dallas dozens of times — to play NHL games, cover them as a broadcaster and, eventually, visit his daughter and 1-year-old grandson while she studies at SMU.
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But that preseason game 40 years ago Wednesday — Sept. 30, 1986, between the Oilers and Detroit Red Wings at Reunion Arena — became a catalyst not only for Gretzky’s ties to Dallas, but for the Stars’ future in the city.
“I guess from 1986 to 2026, I’m part of Dallas,” Gretzky told The Dallas Morning News. “Let me put it this way: In 1986, I didn’t envision hockey being where it’s at today in Dallas. It’s a credit to the whole city, the organization and the league.”
Bringing the NHL to Dallas for the first time that fall took imagination, persistence and a few calculated risks from a handful of businessmen.
But according to Brad Thomas — SMU’s first sports promotion director and a longtime Dallas sports marketing consultant — he and his late business partner, Michael Halbrooks, pulled it off with the help of a Mattel doll and a horse figurine.
Not taking no for an answer
Thomas doesn’t like to take no for an answer.
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It’s probably a big reason he’s had a decades-long career in marketing in Dallas, having a hand in several events and franchises from SMU to LIV Golf to FC Dallas and more.
The Edmonton Oilers learned that about Thomas quite early in the process.
A few years removed from his time at SMU, he and Halbrooks started an event company called Events Inc. They hosted track events, tennis and other sports they felt the D-FW area was lacking.
Hockey was one of those sports — a major professional game with no ties to Dallas outside of the Dallas Black Hawks of the Central Hockey League, who played from 1967-82.
Longtime Dallas sports marketing consultant Brad Thomas (left) knew they had to make Oilers superstar Wayne Gretzky (right) the centerpiece of promotion for the NHL’s first game in Dallas.
Courtesy of Brad Thomas
“It was a major sport, and it wasn’t here,” Thomas said. “We thought that’s the kind of game we can promote and market and maybe sell out.”
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But Thomas knew the only way they could do so would be bringing Gretzky to town — not only the game’s greatest star but one of the biggest superstar athletes of all time.
Thomas didn’t just make a few phone calls to the Oilers. He spent years trying to convince them.
“The first reaction was almost laughable,” he said. “‘It’s too hot. The ice won’t be solid. That’s ridiculous.’”
But he didn’t quit. Mattel released a Wayne Gretzky figurine in January 1983, and Thomas saw his opportunity.
“I got my hands on one of those,” he said. “I bought a plastic pony, and I was able to figure it out where we put the Gretzky doll on the horse, and I packaged it up and sent it off to [Oilers Assistant GM] Bruce MacGregor and said, ‘Wayne Gretzky wants to come to Texas.’”
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Getting others on board
The Oilers ultimately agreed to play a 1986 preseason game in Dallas. Thomas and Halbrooks had a much easier time convincing Steve Yzerman’s Detroit Red Wings to be the opponent.
The duo determined it would cost $100,000 to bring both teams to Dallas — $75,000 for Edmonton and $25,000 for Detroit.
Thomas called up his friend he knew through SMU, Malcolm Holland, who had recently started a bank, and asked for a loan.
“I said, ‘This is crazy. This is Dallas. It’s 100 degrees, and we don’t do ice here,’” Holland said. “I made a $50,000 loan that I never should have made because there wasn’t really any proven product here, but I made it because I believed in Brad and Mike that they could bring people to the arena and sell tickets.”
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Wil Caudell, the new GM of Reunion Arena in 1986, had a similar belief.
When Thomas and Halbrooks approached him with the idea, he was all for it, especially once he knew Gretzky was involved.
While most questioned whether Reunion Arena could support hockey at the time, Caudell had no doubt.
“We can do ice. We do Disney on ice,” he said. “In 1980, when we built Reunion Arena, it is a perfect hockey arena. The sightlines were even better than American Airlines Center.”
He hired a seasoned hockey specialist to ensure the ice was NHL-ready and safe for the players. That was his responsibility, while Thomas and Halbrooks worked on selling seats.
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Great One comes to Dallas
The marketing plan was built entirely around Gretzky.
“One guy sold tickets,” Thomas said.
They bought full-page advertisements in The News that said, “The great Gretzky comes to Dallas.” They offered a $99 front row rink side package that included a seat along the boards, a ticket to a private postgame reception and an autographed picture of Gretzky.
But all the other tickets were cheaper than $30. The get-in price was under $15.
They gave out bumper stickers, pennants, hats, media gifts and anything they could to get the word out.
And it worked. Nearly 17,000 fans packed Reunion Arena on that September night.
“It was a bona fide sellout,” Thomas said. “We walked away that night with a low six-figure net profit. At that point, we thought, ‘OK, we are really good at this.’ Such a victory. Such a great experience.”
An unforgettable atmosphere
Daryl Reaugh, who would begin a 30-plus year career as the Stars’ play-by-play announcer a decade later, was there that night.
Reaugh has become a fan favorite in Dallas and across the league. Like Gretzky, that game would introduce him to Dallas — a city he’d call home for half his life.
But on that night, the Oilers’ goalie and his teammates knew their job was to take a backseat.
“They were not concerned with Daryl Reaugh,” he said. “It was all about Wayne.”
Dallas had perhaps unfairly, yet understandably, earned some skepticism about its ability to safely host an NHL game.
Reaugh remembers a board they had to walk on to get on the ice that would leave wood pieces stuck in their skates.
“We were standing around, and we were like, ‘Somebody’s going to die,’” he said.
But at the same time, he and his teammates embraced the opportunity to expand the game far away from their home in Western Canada.
Gretzky led that charge.
“He probably played upwards of 25 minutes of the game in Dallas because that was him. That was Gretz. He understood the drill and that it was important,” Reaugh said.
Gretzky reflects on the game with fond memories. While the first that come to mind were how hot it was, he remembers how Thomas and Halbrooks did all they could to make it a pleasant experience for the players, even if they didn’t have all the bells and whistles of a typical NHL rink.
He remembers when two young girls came out to sing the national anthem, whom Thomas had tracked down from an episode of the “Late Show with David Letterman,” and the entire arena erupted.
And he remembers the same enthusiasm from the fans throughout the game.
“The majority of the crowd had never seen a live hockey game,” Gretzky said. “The crowd was really into it. It wasn’t like a normal exhibition game. They were really excited to be part of it. It was unreal.”
One thing no one can seem to remember is who won the day.
(For the record, the Oilers won, 3-1.)
But it would help the city of Dallas become big winners in the long run.
Paving the way for the Stars
The game was such a success that it became a tradition.
The Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers played in 1987 in a rematch of the prior season’s Stanley Cup Final. They tried to bring Gretzky back for a third year, for a matchup with Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins, but weeks before the game he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings.
Nevertheless, the tradition of hockey at Reunion Arena carried on.
When Norm Green began planning to move his Minnesota North Stars to Dallas in the early 1990s, there was already proof that hockey in Dallas could be a success.
The North Stars may not have had Gretzky, but they had another up-and-coming player who had a similar understanding of his role in growing the game.
“We ended up getting a guy, he’s not Wayne Gretzky, but a reasonable facsimile in Mike Modano,” Reaugh said. “When you look back at it, if you weren’t going to get Wayne, he was like the next best thing you could probably get for a market like this in the ‘90s.”
Years after the Stars moved to Dallas, Thomas ran into Green at a show at the Majestic Theater.
“I said, ‘Hey, this is Norm Green. Norm Green brought hockey to Dallas,’” Thomas said while introducing a friend to Green.
“Right in the middle of me saying that, he went, ‘Whoa, whoa! You brought hockey to Dallas.’”