Point 2

“Ice time” seems pretty important to Mr. Cowlishaw, as hockey is one of his favorite topics to talk about. The heralded columnist from the Dallas Morning News gives his opinion on this “northern” sport as much as he possibly can while still giving the fans what they want in the north Texas area which always seems to be one of the big three sports, football, basketball, or baseball. Although these are the main sports in the metroplex, what people need to know is that the Dallas Stars, the National Hockey League team that calls it’s home in Dallas, have had the most success of any professional sports teams in Dallas. The Stars are the only team to have one a championship in the decade, there first and only was achieved in 1999, and have consistently been contenders in the Western Conference. Something that the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers have not done in some time, although the Cowboys seem to be closing the gap on the Stars in being Dallas’ true team in my opinion. Tim is the kind of writer that will try and open the reader’s eyes on certain things that they might not know, or maybe they know of the situation but he goes above and beyond to give them new and maybe even controversial information to regain their focus. In his article in April of 1999, Tim gives some information about the goalie situation or controversy as some were calling it. Ed Belfour, the starting goalie of the eventual Stanley Cup champions, was a solid performer during the regular season but didn’t seem to be playing at a championship level, but his backup was looking like a potential Vezina Trophy winner which is given to the top goalie in the league. Like I pointed out in the first point Tim loves to give stats to back up his writing. Belfour the starting goalie had a record of 32-13-9, meaning he won 32 times, lost 13, and tied 9 times, very solid numbers for a 33 year old protector of the crease but these numbers just seem to wither away in the face of Roman Turek’s stats. The 5 year younger Turek had a staggering record of 15-3-3, 15 wins, 3 losses, and 3 ties, a record that would catapult Turek into the league’s elite players. Was their a controversy in Dallas about their hockey team? Who really knows? But for one thing the public was informed about the potential switch going into the playoffs that year. Tim goes inside and grabs the information that the public, or the ones that are hockey fans at least, wanted to know. Tim is known for his great reporting skills and is almost what I call a Ninja, because of his stealth like reporting and skills in interpreting what the information that he gets really means. Ken Hitchcock believes there is no controversy brewing in Dallas but Tim disagrees, “Sorry, Ken. You pick the lines, we'll pick the controversies”(“It Takes Two”). It looks like the “Ninja” has struck again.

Tim, Cowlishaw. "It Takes Two Baby." Sporting News 223.1619 Apr 1999 57. 04 Mar 2008 .