by Stephen Meserve | AHL On The Beat
Texas Stars ahead Cross Hanas answering the phone on the first ring after a missed call.
He explains: “Excuse me, I was fixing some things. “I didn’t hear my phone ringing, I had just moved to the area.
Finally.
After a 25-game AHL tryout contract, Hanas signed a regular-season contract on Dec. 13, securing him a spot with the Stars for the rest of the season and ensuring he can leave the Cedar Park hotel room he’s been staying in since October.
Long before Hanas was fighting for a roster spot or counting games at the PTO, he was studying the geography of hockey in Texas: the rinks, the locker rooms and the rhythm of life built around the game. It was a map that was given to him long before he needed it.
Hanas is the third Texas-born player to skate for the Texas Stars, after that Austin Smith again Colton Hargrove. Born in 2002, just a few years after the Dallas Stars won their first and so far only Stanley Cup, Hanas said he was “just born into hockey. Hockey was the only thing I knew growing up.”
his father, Trevor Hanashe played minor league in Peoria, Topeka and Tulsa before settling in Dallas to raise a family.
The Dallas Stars’ first practice facility was Cross’ home rink when I was growing up.
“I was there every day. That was the rink I really grew up in. There’s not a square inch of that place that I haven’t seen.”
Of course, his dad as a coach and former pro comes with a good side and a bad side. As a coach, he is always there. But he is also always there. They soon discovered that it was better if Cross and Trevor were on separate teams.
“During the season, he wanted the voice of a different guy to be my coach and for me to learn to respect other elders and coaches and learn from them,” said Cros.
Asked to think about the advice he received from his father that upset him at the time but turned out to be correct, you can hear Hanas’ voice smiling as he remembers his father’s guidance.
Hanase repeats his father’s wisdom: “You must work hard, move your feet, and finish.”
“But I was too stubborn to do that.”
After years of sweet goals and dangles in Dallas, advice hit him like a truck when he got to the minors.
“All the ability in the world goes out the window when you get to the senior levels. Wow, he was right when I was seven, eight, nine years old.”
His father’s words were certainly echoing in Hanas’ head this summer as he thought about what was next in his professional career. After being drafted in the second round in 2020 by Detroit, he signed an entry-level contract with the Red Wings and began his professional career in the American Hockey League with Grand Rapids.
Just shy of 150 games later, he found himself without a proper offer last summer and looking ahead to next season without a place to play.
And then at home he called her back. A training camp tryout offer from a team that began its journey across the Lone Star State on the ice where he learned to skate.
“Just to have the opportunity to be in Dallas. I felt at the level of comfort to be in that situation, which helped me a lot,” said Hanas. “I knew all the places. I knew all the rinks, I knew all the roads. I didn’t need maps to know where I was going.”
Perhaps the sense of place and comfort was somehow relaxing. One less thing to worry about as he is working on a full year contract. Perhaps we reminded him more than ever of his father’s advice.
“On the ice, it’s been a lot of work for me,” Hanas said of what he tried to manage to move from PTO to contract. “Because I don’t know what the future holds, they did little things every day. It seemed like every day was your last, because that’s really what PTO is.”
He received positive comments from Texas’ coaches for making sure he plays his game and doesn’t let the PTO probation factor keep him from being the player Texas signed him to be.
“It never felt like I was on PTO,” he said. “Everyone made me feel so comfortable that I felt like I was meant to be here.”
It worked. Hanas is on the verge of his best AHL season with 15 points in just 24 games, just two shy of his full-season mark. His first goal of the season was “very special” as he scored it against his former team the Griffins on opening weekend.
As for things off the ice, you get the feeling from talking to the 24-year-old that his parents have something to do with that part.
“That’s always the right thing to do – just be the best person you can be. Whoever it is, the coaches, the teammates, the training staff, everybody. There are people who help on the rink. Always be the best person you can be.”
Somehow, the lessons came to a perfect balance. Hanas gets the chance to teach young players several times a week every summer.
“I love to help [my dad] in the summer with his camps or groups. Especially this past summer, since I’ve just been home so long, I got to work with a lot of kids. Whenever I talk to the kids, it’s about the things my parents used to talk about when I was little,” he said with a laugh.
I said, ‘We have to work, move your feet, pass the puck. When I was young, I didn’t even want to listen to my father. But if you want to play high-level hockey, you will
learning to do these things at a high level.’”
But as much as he preaches the gospel of getting your feet moving on the ice, Hanas is more than happy to have his feet firmly planted in Cedar Park for the rest of the year.
Stephen Meserve is the host of 100 Degree Hockey, which has covered the Texas Stars since their first season.
