There’s a memorable scene in the movie “Major League” when Jake Taylor, an aging ballplayer making one last go-round with the Cleveland Indians, is asked by an elderly woman which big-league team he plays for.

When he tells her that he plays for the Indians, she says, “Here in Cleveland?  I didn’t know they still had a team.”

That’s how I sometimes feel about our affiliation with the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League.  Not among the hard-cores (who, generally-speaking, are the people who read this blog).  For instance, it has been brought to our attention more than once that some of the casual fans dislike our “Future Stars” nights, when we wear Dallas Stars jerseys to be auctioned off to benefit local non-profits, because they can’t tell which team is the Steelheads.

It happens.  And I’m not solely going to blame those people.  Their lack of certainty about “Future Stars Night,” where one team is wearing a jersey with a giant STAR on it (while the other team wears, say, Ontario Reign uniforms) means that I need to do a better job reinforcing the fact that we are affiliated with the NHL’s Dallas Stars.  So I’m trying to do that.  I’m doing so in perhaps the least-effective venue possible, too – a blog that is read by the hard-core fans who already know all about our affiliation with the Dallas Stars (NHL) and Texas Stars (AHL).

It’s public-relatin’ like that which will earn one the ECHL Media Relations Director of the Year award.

Anyway, moving on …

Dallas has opened training camp and there are a handful of former Steelheads competing for jobs with the parent club.  Playing the numbers game, it doesn’t look likely (though it isn’t impossible) that any of them, aside from Dallas returnee Tom Wandell, will actually break camp with the big club and open the season in the NHL.  With injuries, though, it could happen.  So we’ll let that play itself out.

That doesn’t mean, however, that players can’t make big-time impressions.  Playing in the favor of the remaining former Steelies (Mathieu Tousignant, Francis Wathier, Luke Gazdic, Richard Bachman, and Tyler Beskorowany) is that they all played for new Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan in Texas last season.  So “Gully” knows each of those players well.

The Stars scrimmaged on Sunday, with Team Black defeating Team White in a shootout.  Perhaps the most notable thing for the Steelhead hard-cores is that Bachman, who was the runner-up for ECHL Goaltender of the Year in 2009-10 here in Idaho, turned aside every shot he faced in the shootout in helping his team get the win.  And he didn’t face camp-fodder chumps, either: Steve Ott, Jamie Benn, Loui Eriksson, Vernon Fiddler, and Radek Dvorak.  Eriksson and Benn each scored over 50 points with the Stars last season and Ott has somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 career points at the NHL level.  Fiddler should surpass 500 games in the NHL this coming season and Dvorak is closing in on 1,200 career games (and over 550 career points).

So Richard Bachman, the little guy who people keep wanting to doubt, continues to get the job done.  As a Stars blogger once said (I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find the exact blog to quote), all he does is stop pucks.  Which (paraphrasing complete, by the way) is what you hire goaltenders to do.  I don’t care that he’s only 5-foot-10.  I don’t care that you’d have to attach 30 pounds worth of sandbags to his elbows to get him up to 210 pounds.  The dude makes saves and he wins games.  Always has.  I’ll take that on my team any day of the week.

Richard and, for that matter, Tyler Beskorowany appear to be blocked in the short term by NHL veteran Andrew Raycroft.  However, if Richard and/or Tyler have especially strong camps, there’s nothing written in stone that says the Stars can’t move Raycroft to keep either Bachman or Beskorowany around to back up starter Kari Lehtonen.

So, you ask … how can we reinforce the affiliation better?  Well, there are three ways that I can see:

(1) NHL continues to surge in popularity.  Attendance, television ratings, television exposure.  All, as a whole, seem to be moving the right direction.  Although some of the numbers may be slight (like the uptick in attendance, which is pretty small), every little bit helps increase awareness about hockey.

(2) A strong run from the Dallas Stars.  There are those who think the team is heading the right direction with players like Loui Eriksson, Jamie Benn, and Kari Lehtonen.  There are others who think the team took a step back when it lost Brad Richards.  There are others who say the team is merely treading water until all the bankruptcy/sale/etc. stuff is resolved.  Whichever camp you fall into, there’s little debate that a strong Stars team creates and drives attention which, in turn, helps us sell the relationship to our fans.

(3) A Stars “star.”  For better or worse, Idaho’s three most-talked about NHL alums (Zenon Konopka, Dan Ellis, BJ Crombeen) have done the vast majority of their NHL damage for teams not named the Dallas Stars.  From that standpoint, it’s tougher to reinforce the affiliation when we’ve yet to really have a player break through at the NHL level for the Dallas Stars.  Getting someone like Bachman, Tousignant, Gazdic, or Beskorowany to become a regular, steady contributor in Dallas would create an easy vehicle for us to push the fact that, hey, that dude used to play here … and the only reason he did play here was because of our NHL affiliation with the Dallas Stars.

Hey, look at this, as I’m typing about the affiliation, I see that JB Bittner – a former Stars prospect who spent time with the Steelheads – has been named assistant coach of the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays.  Doesn’t do much to drive home the point, but it gave me an avenue to name-drop a former ‘Head who only played in Idaho because of our affiliation with the Stars.  A stretch?  Sure.  Odds are good it won’t be the last.

Keep your eye on Dallas’s training camp and, starting a week from today, the AHL camp in Texas.  We could be assigned a couple of players when its all said and done from the Stars organization, keeping the relationship alive and well.

Idaho’s camp opens October 3 here at CenturyLink Arena.  The boards are up, the glass is up, the floor is chilling in preparation of putting in the ice.  Yessiree, it’s just about “go-time,” hockey fans.  Get excited.

Season-Ticket Holder Only game on Friday, October 7 … regular-season opener in Utah on October 14 … home opener on Saturday, October 15.  Right around the corner.  Let’s get after it!