The Polar Ice House arena in Grapevine Texas is closing on September 6th, 2014. The official announcement was made on Monday although the imminent closure was known throughout the hockey community for quite some time.
At risk for the Western States Hockey League are the Dallas Icejets, and the Texas Attack. The Texas Attack were never officially announced, but were listed on schedules as a team yet to be named, and are listed in some sections of the WSHL website.
The Icejets, a long standing program in the WSHL and Midget AAA ranks had been embroiled in a complaint based upon its USA Hockey sanctioned Midget team playing games against its AAU sanctioned WSHL team. Such games are not allowed to take place without pre approval from USA Hockey for the Midget program. Those games caused the Icejets the loss of their Midget program last season.
The Polar Ice House also filed a lawsuit alleging that the Dallas Stars organization, and others were competing unfairly in the local market. The Stars own and or manage a number of facilities in the Dallas area.
The WSHL has not released an official schedule at this time although some teams have released their schedules. It has been rumored that the league did not release the schedule yet because it was aware of the potential closure.
With the loss of the Texas Brahmas to the NA3HL, and now the potential loss of two other teams many people are now speculating how the other six teams in the WSHL’s Midwest Division will adjust not only their schedules, but their increased costs due to increased travel.
The Dallas Snipers, and Springfield Express will likely be the teams most effected as the Snipers could be losing their two closest rivals, and Springfield would be losing two travel partners for extended road trips to the Dallas area. The Tulsa Jr. Oilers and El Paso Rhinos would also likely be effected by such a loss.
With the season slated to begin for most junior hockey leagues in North America coming in less than four weeks, the timing of the closure is extremely concerning. With most ice already booked throughout North America, additional ice to support two teams in the Dallas area is going to be near impossible to find.
While no official statement has been made by the WSHL, sources within the league have informed TJHN that something should be said shortly.
TJHN will update this story as more information becomes available.
