His next words are seared in her memory:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me remind you where you get your ice from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andresen later said he did not use those words. To Bry, though, the implication was clear: Unless the club gave the coaches their jobs back, the Stars could stop letting its six teams practice in their rinks. She couldn\u2019t understand why an NHL team would strong-arm a youth hockey club over a personnel matter and hold its kids\u2019 ability to play hostage.<\/p>\n
The Stars, she soon learned, had operated that way for years.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/82590659007-dallas-stars-subhead.jpg\")
The Dallas Stars\u2019 monopoly<\/p>\n
Unlike the NFL, NBA and MLB, a handful of NHL teams are intimately involved in running the youth levels of their sports in their regions \u2013 perhaps none more than the Stars. In Dallas, the Stars spent decades turning what was once seen as a community good into a lucrative arm of their for-profit enterprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stars executives addressed some of USA TODAY’s questions in a 35-minute interview and emailed statements, but left other questions unanswered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really proud of everything we built here, and we\u2019re committed to continuing to grow hockey in the community and across the state,\u201d said Dan Stuchal, the Stars\u2019 chief operating officer. \u201cWe\u2019ve become the model for all non-traditional NHL markets that both the NHL and USA Hockey continually point to in terms of how to grow the game, because that\u2019s the focus for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/85422817007-dallas-stars-monopoly.jpg\"\/)
![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n
Texas parents speak out on Dallas Stars’ control over youth ice hockey<\/p>\n
Youth hockey parents in Texas say the Dallas Stars threatened and retaliated against them and their kids. Now they’re speaking out.<\/p>\n
At a time of increasing commercialization of youth sports nationally, hockey is particularly vulnerable to capture by corporate interests. Whereas baseball and soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts are ubiquitous in parks and schools, fewer than 3,000 ice hockey rinks exist across the U.S., largely because running them is so expensive.<\/p>\n
The Stars capitalized on that dynamic by building an ice empire. They convinced seven local municipalities to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars building rinks that the Stars run and profit from. Their ownership group bought up three more. Along the way, at least eight other independent ice hockey rinks went out of business. Now, every level of amateur hockey in North Texas from preschoolers to adults runs through the state\u2019s NHL team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By monopolizing the ice, the Stars effectively control the pathways by which young players advance to the sport’s highest stages. Knowing most local hockey families have nowhere else to go, the Stars impose their will by reminding parents that they can block the pathway for any kid.<\/p>\n
The Stars regularly raise prices on their services while diminishing their quality. They repeatedly retaliate against people they perceive as threats, from coaches who defect to other rinks to parents who criticize them on Facebook. By stacking the regional USA Hockey governing body that regulates the sport with their own executives, the Stars all but ensured no one would stand in their way.<\/p>\n
USA TODAY spoke to more than 100 hockey parents, coaches, players, business owners and current and former Stars employees and reviewed hundreds of pages of property records, business filings, contracts, tax returns, court records, emails and internal documents. Together, they reveal how the Stars bullied a community on their path to profiting off a youth sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no clue what I was getting into,\u201d Bry told USA TODAY. \u201cIf I have an issue or grievance, there is no process for me because they control everything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
We want to hear from you: <\/strong>Are you concerned about the corporatization of youth sports in your community? Fill out this form.<\/a><\/p>\n In the face of Andresen\u2019s threat, Bry stood her ground. The club did not renew the two coaches\u2019 contracts. Emails, meeting audio, internal documents and dozens of interviews detail what happened next.<\/p>\n That summer, the Stars informed all two-dozen local high school hockey clubs that the NHL team would be taking over their operations. No longer would the clubs set and collect their own fees, negotiate their own practice ice time, hire and pay their own coaches or sign sponsors without the Stars\u2019 approval. All players would now pay the Stars directly. All coaches would now be Stars hires and employees.<\/p>\n Immediately, the Stars imposed a new fee structure that raised registration fees for many players while reducing the number of ice hours their teams received. All teams would now get two preseason games \u2013 one fewer than in years past \u2013 and no more than one hour of practice ice a week. The Stars later reduced the regular-season schedule from 18 games to 16. That\u2019s less than half the number of weekly ice hours that USA Hockey\u2019s American Development Model recommends for teenagers to improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bry and the other club leaders were stunned. The Stars stripped the clubs of their agency, practically overnight. The Stars reinstated the two coaches. And there was nothing Bry or the club leaders could do \u2013 because the Stars controlled the ice.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andresen told USA TODAY that the Stars made the changes to level the playing field for high school teams across the region, charge each player the same price, pay each coach the same amount, and protect coaches from club leaders with axes to grind. Under the new structure, he said, most coaches got pay bumps, and most players ended up paying less the first year. As for the two coaches, he said the Stars felt they deserved to stay because they had strong track records and had not violated any rules.<\/p>\n Of all the clubs, the changes hurt Frisco Ice Hockey Association the most. The Stars\u2019 contract with the City of Frisco to manage the city-owned rink requires them to give the club a minimum of 104 ice hours each year free of charge. After the takeover, however, the Stars stopped honoring that agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the next two years, families in the association were collectively billed tens of thousands of dollars for ice they were supposed to get free, Bry said. She and other club leaders reported the apparent breach of contract to City of Frisco leaders, who emails show met with the Stars in March to discuss it.\u00a0<\/p>\n As of July, the Stars agreed to give overbilled families a discount toward future seasons, city officials confirmed. Families like Bry\u2019s, whose kids no longer play, will get refunds of $312 for each season they were overcharged \u2013 a figure she believes falls well short of what they lost.<\/p>\n In the business of amateur hockey, ice is power. In the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, the Stars amassed almost all of it.<\/p>\n The Stars inked a deal to buy their first rink in Texas in 1993, the year the franchise relocated to Dallas from Minnesota. The team needed a place to practice, so they bought the only full-sized rink in the state. They renamed it \u201cStarCenter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hockey wasn\u2019t big in Texas at the time. But playoff runs in five of the Stars\u2019 first six seasons there spawned a wave of interest. Kids and adults signed up in droves for the StarCenter\u2019s recreational leagues and competitive teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n By 1999, the Stars had competition. At least nine other privately-owned rinks in the metroplex were running their own hockey programs to accommodate the growing demand. The Stars looked to grow their footprint.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the next decade, the NHL team cut deals with five cities to build new StarCenters using public money.\u00a0<\/p>\n City contracts lay out the details. The cities each put up around $10 million or more up front to build the rinks. Once built, they leased the rinks exclusively to the Stars, who agreed to repay the cities in rent payments over 20 to 30 years. In theory, the cities would eventually get their up-front costs back, while the Stars would keep the profits.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Stars continued expanding when Tom Gaglardi, a Canadian hotel and restaurant magnate, bought the Stars franchise in 2011 for $240 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n His company, Northland Developments, bought two privately-owned rinks months apart in 2014. The Stars partnered with the City of Mansfield in 2016 to build a 78,000-square-foot ice rink and event space that cost residents more than $20 million, city invoices show, after the Stars blew through the original budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, the Stars run eight of the 11 full-sized ice-rink facilities within 150 miles of downtown Dallas \u2013 and are still growing. In 2024, they partnered with the Town of Northlake to build another taxpayer-funded StarCenter, which is under construction. They are in discussions with the City of Forney to build what could be their 10th rink.<\/p>\n The use of public money to bring ice to Dallas helped roughly triple the number of people registered with USA Hockey to play in Texas. At the same time, it crushed the competition and concentrated almost all the market power in a region of 8 million people into the hands of one for-profit company.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the expertise, we have the staff, we have the resources to bring the best-quality hockey facilities and programming to the entire marketplace,\u201d said Stuchal, the Stars\u2019 chief operating officer. \u201cI can\u2019t speak to other businesses that have come into play here, but without our investment in growing the sport here locally, there just wouldn\u2019t be the hockey landscape that exists today.\u201d<\/p>\n The Stars, valued by Forbes at $2 billion, have shown their competitors little mercy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to live within their world,\u201d said Frank Trazzera, who since 2007 has run a rink in Fort Worth called NYTEX Sports Centre. \u201cThey do a lot of great things for hockey. Not all of them have been inclusive of us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On multiple occasions, the Stars have excluded teams that play at non-Stars-run rinks from their leagues,\u00a0fracturing what had long been community-wide activities. Last year, the Stars kicked NYTEX\u2019s \u201chouse\u201d teams \u2013 the lowest level of youth competition \u2013\u00a0out of their league after 15 years, forcing the rink to form its own league with far fewer players and teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Stars readmitted NYTEX’s teams to its house leagues for the upcoming season. Trazzera said he believes the Stars kicked out NYTEX’s teams because his rink ran spring programs that competed with Stars’ programs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey ended the relationship in a text message,\u201d Trazzera said. \u201cWe were out with no discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of using their influence to make a notoriously expensive sport more accessible, the Stars used their monopoly power to jack up prices.<\/p>\n Kat Pierce\u2019s son played the 2024 season for his local high school team and a competitive travel club, the McKinney North Stars. She said she and her husband spent about $30,000 on hockey expenses last year alone.<\/p>\n Club and league fees \u2013\u00a0which cover teams\u2019 ice rental \u2013 cost about $9,000.\u00a0Another $8,000 went toward airfare, hotels, rental cars, gas, and meals for out-of-town games and tournaments. The rest covered private camps, lessons, training, equipment and team apparel.<\/p>\n Travel clubs that rent Stars ice have steadily paid more money for the same or fewer ice hours, tax returns and financial disclosures show. In six years, the Stars increased the price they charge travel clubs for ice from $375 to $500 an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ice costs for the McKinney North Stars\u2019 nine teams increased from $350,000 to $425,000 from 2017 to 2022, tax returns show. Its average team now receives 79 practice ice hours per year, down from 97 eight years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n Registration fees for Stars tournaments have similarly ballooned. In five years, the team price for the Stars\u2019 annual Labor Day tournament increased from $1,695 to $2,295. That doesn\u2019t include mandatory hotel bookings, from which the Stars get kickbacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even private lessons \u2013 all but required for young players who want to advance in the sport \u2013 have exceeded some families\u2019 reach.<\/p>\n A one-hour private lesson with a coach and four kids used to cost each family around $55, multiple parents told USA TODAY. That jumped to between $75 and $100 per kid after the Stars more than doubled their minimum cut per lesson. Under the new fee structure, one-on-one lessons can run upwards of $200.<\/p>\n As ice goes, Dallas isn\u2019t necessarily more expensive than other warm parts of the country where one company controls much of the ice. Ice is cheaper in states like Minnesota and Michigan, where the competition is robust and many rinks are community-owned and -run.<\/p>\n Rising energy costs explain part of the Stars\u2019 regular price increases, said Grant Juengling, treasurer of the Dallas Penguins travel club \u2013\u00a0but families bear the brunt of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe go through various levels of frustration, acceptance and frustration again with the Stars,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are very mindful of reminding them that there\u2019s only so much that we can do. It\u2019s very much a tenant-landlord relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n Stuchal acknowledged the hardships that price hikes cause families. He said the Stars are not immune to rising costs, either, and that the organization\u2019s leaders came to each decision to raise prices \u201cvery cautiously and thoughtfully.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything has gotten more expensive; it\u2019s just the economy we live in right now,\u201d Stuchal said. \u201cWe\u2019re really just trying to keep this thing afloat and keep things moving in a positive direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Pierce and her husband struggle to make ends meet. Medical ailments have prevented her from working consistently, she said. Her husband works a full-time job and makes side income from refereeing and donating plasma.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe live hand-to-mouth,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge struggle just to keep your kid\u2019s dreams alive.\u201d<\/p>\n When parents and players grow frustrated with the Stars\u2019 business practices, they express it in the only ways they know how:\u00a0by criticizing the Stars on social media or suggesting they\u2019ll take their business elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many of those people have met the $2 billion organization\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n Jeremy Thompson was fed up. The Stars had raised registration fees for the adult league he and his friends played in while also introducing a running clock during games, which significantly shortened teams\u2019 time on the ice.<\/p>\n After nearly a thousand people signed Thompson\u2019s online petition calling on the Stars to address his and his peers\u2019 concerns, he took to Facebook to suggest starting a beer league at one of the three non-Stars-run hockey rinks in Dallas-Fort Worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Soon after, a Stars rink manager banned Thompson from the league, emails show, for violating the Stars\u2019 social media policy.<\/p>\n \u201cYour consistent and prolonged attempts online to draw people away from our programs and facility as well as your continued defamation of StarCenter programming is a direct violation of that policy,\u201d then-StarCenter Mansfield general manager Milt Highfill\u2019s February 2024 email said.<\/p>\n Highfill did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n Thompson and his friends now play exclusively at ICE at The Parks, a rink inside an Arlington shopping mall. Although later reinstated, Thompson \u2013\u00a0who said he paid the Stars\u2019 league several thousand dollars over the years \u2013 had no interest in returning.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI got kicked out of a league that I had close friends in,\u201d he told USA TODAY. \u201cHanging out with my guys on the ice brings me so much joy, and to have that taken away for no reason, and it cost me that much? It\u2019s just wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Pierce, who runs a Facebook group called Texas Hockey Parents with more than 4,000 members, criticized the Stars in a 2021 post after a game in which her son sustained a concussion. That post landed her in hot water with Todd Cochran, then the StarCenter McKinney general manager and president of the McKinney North Stars.<\/p>\n According to Pierce, a SafeSport complaint she later filed and her typed notes memorializing the conversation, Cochran instructed Pierce not to post in her Facebook group for at least six months \u201cif your son wants any future here in Dallas hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n Cochran, who no longer works for the Stars or McKinney North Stars, did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n Pierce said Cochran also instructed her to remove other \u201cnegative\u201d posts from the Facebook group. Many times, Pierce complied.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely made myself small for a period of time out of fear,\u201d she said. \u201cYou get so beaten down, and you see your kid get screwed over for opportunities, and you decide, \u2018You know what? Maybe I do have to play by their rules to get where I want to be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Another father who coached for years in the Stars\u2019 youth programs grew frustrated by what he saw as a rink manager\u2019s failure to address a safety concern. So he called the NYTEX Sports Centre ice rink \u2013 the Stars\u2019 biggest competitor in the region \u2013 and asked about coaching there instead. Emails he shared with USA TODAY show what happened after the Stars caught wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n John Naylor, general manager of the StarCenter Mansfield, fired the father from his coaching positions and banned him and his daughters from all Stars rinks, according to the\u00a0father\u2019s emails to Naylor memorializing their conversations. His daughters were 5 and 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n Naylor reversed the ban three days later, emails show, but continued to forbid the father from coaching his daughters\u2019 teams.<\/p>\n Naylor denied the father\u2019s allegations, saying the Stars never banned his daughters. He said the Stars removed the father from coaching for \u201cinappropriate behavior detrimental to the league\u201d but declined to say what that entailed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe suspension or removal had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged actions mentioned,\u201d Naylor said.<\/p>\n Added Stuchal: “We would never threaten or oust any individual from any of our programs, as long as they were competing and behaving within the stated rules of the league, policies of our company or facilities.\u00a0We pride ourselves in having safe, clean and positive facilities and programs, so\u00a0any actions that have been taken were ultimately done for the safety and protection of our customers, officials and staff.”<\/p>\n The father initially agreed to speak to USA TODAY on the record. Shortly after the interview, he asked the news organization to withhold his name.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to negatively impact my kids,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t risk it.\u201d<\/p>\n Anyone who has a problem with the way the Stars do business can take it up with the Texas Amateur Hockey Association, the USA Hockey affiliate that regulates the sport in the region.<\/p>\n The problem: Its board has long been filled with Stars executives, some of whom used their positions to enrich themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n USA Hockey, recognized by federal law as the sport\u2019s national governing body, delegates much of its authority to its 34 regional nonprofit affiliates, including the Texas Amateur Hockey Association, which oversees amateur hockey in Texas and Oklahoma.<\/p>\n The association\u2019s board members are elected by the region\u2019s clubs and leagues. But their votes are weighted by the number of players they register \u2013 a structure that gives the Stars a colossal advantage.<\/p>\n Of 13,700 players in the two states, more than 5,000 were registered with the Stars\u2019 for-profit adult, house and high school hockey leagues, membership data from midway through the 2024-25 season show \u2013\u00a037%. The players themselves don\u2019t cast votes; a Stars representative casts votes on their behalf.<\/p>\n Roughly 2,800 more players \u2013\u00a0another 20% \u2013\u00a0registered with travel clubs that rent Stars ice or played in the Dallas Stars Travel Hockey League, which used Stars rinks for tournaments and games. Voting against the NHL team\u2019s interests comes with the implicit risk that the Stars could stop selling them ice or oust them from the league.<\/p>\n Until recently, Stars employees held four of the 11 Texas Amateur Hockey Association voting board seats, including president and secretary. That changed after a USA TODAY investigation in March revealed that President Lucas Reid and Secretary Brad Buckland \u2013\u00a0both of whom served as Stars executives \u2013 used their positions for personal gain.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n For years, Reid, Buckland and Stars vice president Damon Boettcher organized Stars tournaments that required out-of-town participants to book minimum three-night stays at select hotels \u2013 or risk their teams being kicked out of the tournaments without a refund. At the same time, the three executives ran their own for-profit company that took a cut of the revenue from each hotel booking.<\/p>\n Parents who were forced to pay hundreds of dollars for hotel stays they did not always want or need were outraged to learn that their money had enriched the very people who were supposed to be acting in their best interests.<\/p>\n Reid and Buckland did not respond to multiple requests for comment from USA TODAY. Boettcher acknowledged the arrangement but denied any wrongdoing. Steven Stapleton, an attorney representing the association, denied that the arrangement violated conflict-of-interest policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n None of the three employees still work in the Stars\u2019 front office. Stuchal declined to comment on the arrangement.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re no longer employed with the club, so I\u2019m not really going to speak to their actions, since I really didn\u2019t have any direct knowledge of the situation that they were involved with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n After USA TODAY\u2019s investigation, USA Hockey\u2019s national governing body launched an ethics investigation into Reid and Buckland, according to two sources with direct knowledge who are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n USA Hockey senior director of communications Dave Fischer did not respond to multiple requests for comment from USA TODAY.<\/p>\n Buckland resigned as the association\u2019s secretary days after the investigation published. Yet Reid, who started as president in 2019, remains on the board. Although he did not seek reelection when his term expired in June, the nonprofit\u2019s bylaws reserve a board seat for the immediate past president.\u00a0<\/p>\n During Reid and Buckland\u2019s tenure as president and secretary, the affiliate rarely held meetings. Mark Servaes, who succeeded Reid as president in June, said the only minutes he has found are from the association\u2019s 2024 and 2025 annual meetings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rather than advocate for families\u2019 interests, the board largely preserved the status quo.<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing illegal about being a monopoly, said Luke Hasskamp, an antitrust attorney with Bona Law, which has offices in Dallas, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York and San Diego \u2013\u00a0as long as the firm uses legal means to achieve and protect its dominant market position.<\/p>\n A firm\u2019s ability to raise prices by 5% or more without losing business is a hallmark of a monopoly, he said. But raising prices and ruthlessly competing for business isn\u2019t illegal, either.<\/p>\n Monopolies can face legal problems, Hasskamp said, when they start winning business based on anything except the merits of their services. Some of the Stars\u2019 business practices, he said, may have crept into that territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, locking cities into 20- to 30-year leases can create significant barriers for potential competitors trying to enter the rink market \u2013 a key factor in determining whether a monopoly has engaged in anticompetitive conduct.\u00a0<\/p>\n Threatening and retaliating against parents and coaches who use non-Stars-run rinks, Hasskamp said, could also run afoul of antitrust laws.<\/p>\n Perhaps the clearest example of possible anticompetitive conduct is the Stars\u2019 use of stay-to-play tournament requirements. By \u201ctying\u201d their power in the ice rink market to another market,\u00a0they effectively force families to buy a product they don\u2019t want \u2013\u00a0hotels \u2013 to get the one they do want \u2013 tournaments.<\/p>\n Because the Stars\u2019 stay-to-play requirements involved multiple third parties \u2013\u00a0Reid, Buckland and Boettcher, their company, the hotels, and the Texas Amateur Hockey Association \u2013 the affected families could argue that the Stars engaged in an agreement to illegally restrain trade, Hasskamp said, in violation of the Sherman Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n A similar issue emerged in an antitrust lawsuit against Varsity, a company that required participants at its cheerleading competitions to stay at specific hotels from which it received kickbacks. Varsity agreed to limit its stay-to-play policies as part of its settlement of that lawsuit.<\/p>\n Yet stay-to-play arrangements remain common across youth sports, and the Stars continue to use them. Although they no longer work with Reid, Buckland and Boettcher\u2019s company, Stuchal said the Stars will work with a new stay-to-play hotel booking provider for upcoming tournaments, adding that they will be \u201cloosening\u201d the policies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority of our participating teams \u2013 they welcome the service and are happy to pay for that service and the convenience that comes with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Days after USA TODAY\u2019s investigation in March, a group of travel clubs in Texas and Oklahoma withdrew from the Dallas Stars Travel Hockey League and started their own league, the Texas Hockey League. By banding together, the league\u2019s leaders hope to push back on some of the Stars\u2019 less savory practices, like stay-to-play requirements.<\/p>\n The Stars, they acknowledge, still hold the power.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be partners with them, but they get to determine their partnership with us,\u201d said Mike Salekin, a founding Texas Hockey League board member.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIce is gold, and they control the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n With at least one new rink in the works, the Stars are doubling down on their multi-million-dollar youth-sports bet.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, the $2 billion NHL franchise is expanding its empire to encompass another youth sport: volleyball.<\/p>\n Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY who covers college and youth sports. Follow him on X @kennyjacoby<\/a> and on Bluesky @kennyjacoby.bsky.social<\/a>. Email him at kjacoby@usatoday.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lisa Bry expected a standard meet-and-greet when she visited the manager of the local ice rink. Instead, she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[3907,35440,8745,18589,50021,15868,7560,38716,6096,12069,12,13828,699,11759,79,6924,5636,38712,49,978,659,59735,11758,45810],"class_list":{"0":"post-314007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-article-plus","10":"tag-content","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-stars","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-image","15":"tag-image-topper","16":"tag-national","17":"tag-national-sports","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nhl","20":"tag-plus","21":"tag-sharing","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-sports-news","24":"tag-stars","25":"tag-topper","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-usa-hockey","30":"tag-usat","31":"tag-usat-content-sharing-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Delivering on their threat<\/p>\nA taxpayer-subsidized empire<\/p>\nMore money, less ice<\/p>\nCracking down on dissent<\/p>\nStacking the governing body<\/p>\nHealthy capitalism or illegal monopoly?<\/p>\n