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I am from Texas and I'm sure I would love hockey if I'd grown up in a hockey town. As it is, I never played it or watched it--at all--as a kid. Now, I don't really understand the game that much and can't really follow it on TV very well. Also, I think you need a team to really get behind before you can get really into a sport, and I don't have a team like that.

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Much of this is true of course.
But you would be surprised at some of the cities that do really well with hockey even in southern cities where most of the populace knows nothing about the game before getting their team.

Nashville pretty quickly was absolutely crazy/nuts for their NHL team.
I think Dallas has had pretty good fan support as well.

In the minor-leagues, Oklahoma City has consistently been one of the best drawing teams in the country at around 10k fans a game and it's not like they have a ton of hockey players in the area.
Yeah, there are some kids who skate. But mostly it's adults who are coming out because they dig the excitement.

Shreveport, Louisiana also draws well. Another team with good attendance in that league is the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees.

That's pretty different from being a fan of the major-league game where you are watching games on TV and talking about playoff matchups around the water-cooler though.

Just saying that it's not impossible for a Texan who didn't grow up with the sport to actually enjoy it and start to understand it a little after attending a game or two.