Predators-Stars postponed at city request, extreme weather

DALLAS -- — The Dallas Stars postponed their home game Monday night against the Nashville Predators after a request from city officials not to play because of the impact extreme winter weather had on the area.

With significant power outages in North Texas and throughout the state, the NHL said the decision to postpone the game was made by the teams, on-ice officials and the league upon the advice of Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson.

The NHL didn't announce the postponement until just more than a half-hour before the scheduled start of the game. There was power at the American Airlines Center.

Tristan Hallman, a spokesman for the Dallas mayor, told the Dallas Morning News that the AAC is on the critical infrastructure grid, the same grid that powers the convention center and area hospitals.

“I don’t know the status of that grid, but frankly, the Stars game is not critical infrastructure,” Hallman told the DMN. “The American Airlines Center could be critical infrastructure if we were using it for critical infrastructure.”

The game was set to be the fifth of the Stars' season-long eight-game homestand. No makeup date was announced. The teams were already scheduled to play at the AAC for the second of back-to-back games Tuesday night, and it wasn't clear if that game would also be impacted.

Texas was dealing with unusually snowy conditions and bitterly cold temperatures — with wind chills below 0 degrees Fahrenheit — as part of a widespread winter storm. The state’s overwhelmed power grid began imposing blackouts that are typically only seen during 100-degree summer days.

A winter storm warning in the Dallas-Fort Worth area expired early Monday, but the National Weather Service had already issued another one from Tuesday evening through Thursday morning in anticipation of another system expected to bring heavy mixed precipitation, with snow and ice accumulations. The temperature is not expected to get above freezing again until at least Friday.

The NBA's Dallas Mavericks also play in the AAC, and on Sunday night played the sixth of a seven-game homestand that has kept the arena busy. They are scheduled to close their homestand Wednesday night against Detroit.

With the late postponement of the Predators-Stars game, it was the first time in 10 days without an NHL or NBA game being played at the arena.

The Stars are also scheduled to play home games Thursday and Saturday. Those are both against Tampa Bay in a rematch of the Stanley Cup Final won by the Lightning in six games over the Stars in the NHL bubble in Edmonton last September.

------