Ice hockey team in Lincoln, Nebraska
The Lincoln Stars are a Tier I junior ice hockey team playing in the United States Hockey League (USHL). The Stars' home ice is the Ice Box on the former Nebraska State Fair grounds and adjacent to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
History
With prompting of Lincoln realtor Mark Claydon, who spear-headed an effort to build the city's first and only indoor ice arena, the Stars came to Lincoln in 1996. Led by Derek Reynolds and future NHL player Josh Langfeld, the Stars posted a 40–13–1 regular season record, the best expansion season in USHL history.[citation needed] The Stars continued their domination through the playoffs, losing just two playoff games en route to winning the Clark Cup. Every game was sold out at the 4,231-seat Ice Box.[citation needed] The success continued through the following seasons; the Stars sold out every home game until early 2002. In 1998, the Ice Box was expanded to 5,010 seats in preparation for the USA Hockey National Championships (Junior A). The capacity was later reduced to 4,610, as some bleacher seats were converted to club seating.
The Stars made the playoffs their first seven seasons and won a second Clark Cup in 2003. Led by players such as Danny Irmen, the Stars defeated the rival Omaha Lancers in the Clark Cup finals. After the 2003 championship, they missed the playoffs for the first time and attendance started to steadily decrease.[1] From the 2003–04 to 2012–13 seasons, the team qualified for the playoffs eight times and advanced past the second round once.[2]
In 2013, the Stars were sold to Chicago-based businessman Ryan Schiff.[3] The team failed to make the playoffs seven out of the next nine completed seasons; the 2019–20 USHL season was curtailed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.[2]
On June 3, 2021, it was announced the team had been sold to Alberto Fernandez, the owner of both the North American Hockey League's North Iowa Bulls, a franchise that he had owned as the Amarillo Bulls since 2019, and the North American 3 Hockey League's Mason City Toros, a team that used to be called the North Iowa Bulls and had won the league championship four times.[4] Fernandez then brought over the Amarillo Bulls head coach, Rocky Russo, to be the head coach for the Stars.[5]
