Single Post

by Stephen Meserve | AHL On The Beat

---

Texas Stars forward Cross Hanas answers the phone on the first ring after a missed call.

“Sorry, I was just cleaning up some stuff,” he explains. “I didn’t hear my phone ring. I’ve just been moving into a place finally.”

Finally.

After a 25-game AHL tryout contract, Hanas signed a standard player contract on Dec. 13, securing him a spot with the Stars for the rest of the season and ensuring he can move out of the Cedar Park hotel room he’d been occupying since October.

Long before Hanas was fighting for a roster spot or counting games on a PTO, he was learning the geography of hockey in Texas: rinks, locker rooms and the rhythms of a life built around the game. It was a map handed down to him long before he ever needed it.

Hanas is just the third Texas-born player to skate for the Texas Stars, after Austin Smith and 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 right into hockey. Hockey was the only thing I knew growing up.”

His father, Trevor Hanas, played minor pro in Peoria, Topeka and Tulsa before settling in Dallas to raise a family.

The original practice home of the Dallas Stars was Cross’ home rink growing up.

“I was there every single day. That was the rink I literally grew up in. There’s not a square inch of that place I haven’t seen.”

Of course, his father being a coach and former pro comes with a good and bad side. As a coach, he’s always right there. But he’s also always right there. They discovered early that it was best if Cross and Trevor were on different teams.

“During the season, he wanted a different guy’s voice to be my coach and for me to learn how to respect other elders and coaches and learn from them,” Cross said.

Asked to reflect on the bit of advice he got from his dad that most annoyed him at the time but turned out to be right in the end, you can hear the smile in Hanas’ voice as he recalls his dad’s guidance.

Hanas repeats his father’s wisdom: “‘You’ve got to work hard. You’ve got to move your feet. You’ve got to finish.’

“But I was too stubborn to do that.”

After years of goals and sweet dangles in Dallas, the advice hit him like a truck when he got to juniors.

“All the skill in the world goes out the window when you get to the higher levels. Wow, was he ever right when I was seven, eight, nine years old.”

Dad’s words were surely echoing in Hanas’ head this summer as he considered what was next in his professional career. After being drafted in the second round in 2020 by Detroit, he signed an entry-level deal with the Red Wings and started his professional career in the American Hockey League with Grand Rapids.

Just shy of 150 games later, he found himself without a qualifying offer last summer and staring down an upcoming season without a place to play.

And then home called him back. A training camp tryout offer from the team that started their Lone Star State journey on the ice where he learned to skate.

“Just to even have the chance to be in Dallas. I felt a level of comfort being in that situation, which really helped me,” Hanas said. “I knew all the areas. I knew all the rinks, I knew all the roads. I didn’t need maps to know where I’m going.”

Perhaps the sense of place and comfort was freeing in a way. One less thing to worry about as he worked his way toward a full-year contract. Perhaps it reminded him more than ever of his father’s advice.

“For the on-ice stuff, it was working my hardest,” said Hanas about what he tried to control to move himself from PTO to contract. “Because I don’t know what tomorrow brings, it was doing the little things every single day. It was showing up every day like it was your last, because that’s essentially what a PTO is.”

He got some positive words from Texas’ coaching staff on being sure to play his game and not let the evaluation aspect of the PTO prevent him from being the player that Texas signed him to be.

“It never really felt like I was on a PTO,” he said. “Everybody made it so comfortable for me that I felt like I was meant to be here.”

It worked. Hanas is on track for his best AHL season ever with 15 points in just 24 games, just two short of his prior full-season high mark. His first goal of the season was a “very special” one as he scored it against his former Griffins club on opening weekend.

For the off-ice stuff, you get the feeling in talking to the 24-year-old forward that his parents had something to do with that part as well.

“That’s always the right thing to do – just to be a great person. Whoever it is, coaches, teammates, training staff, everybody. There’s people that are helping around the rink. Always be the best person you can possibly be.”

In a way, the lessons came full circle. Hanas gets the opportunity to mentor youth players several times a week every summer.

“I love helping [my dad] out in the summer with camps or his teams. Especially this past summer, just getting to be home for so much longer, I got to work with so many more kids. Whenever I talk to kids, it’s all about the stuff that my parents talked to me about when I was younger,” he notes with laughter.

“I’d say, ‘We gotta work, gotta move your feet, gotta pass the puck. When I was younger, I didn’t want to listen to my dad either. But if you want to play high-level hockey, you’re gonna have
to learn how to do this stuff at a high level.’”

But as much as he is preaching the gospel of moving your feet on the ice, Hanas is more than pleased to have his feet planted firmly in Cedar Park for the rest of the year.