Were London games a favour to Kings owner?
Monday, October 1, 2007 | 12:38 PM ET
This afternoon, tune in for the maiden voyage of Hockey Night in Canada Radio on Sirius Channel 122 from 4p.m. to 6 p.m. ET. Both Ron MacLean and Kelly Hrudey will be my co-hosts for the full two hours. We’ll welcome Calgary Flames head coach Mike Keenan to the show.
We’ll have plenty on the Anaheim-Los Angeles games in London over the weekend, which outside of the darkened O2 arena for 18 minutes on Saturday afternoon went quite well for the NHL. And while the players may have grumbled about it, fans in London seemed to enjoy themselves. It’s always interesting to see how different countries and cultures react to non-traditional sports and it was kind of neat to hear a soccer crowd react to a hockey game.
However, I do think HNIC host McLean hit it on the head during the set-up to Saturday’s game when he talked about Anschutz Entertainment Group owning both the Kings and O2 Arena.
Make no mistake about it - this was a favour to Phillip Anschutz to help promote his rink in London. Otherwise, if the league was serious about “growing the game” in the UK, why inconvenience two teams from the Western Conference? Why not send a pair of teams from the East so the travel would not be as much of a grind?
From around the league:
- News out of New Jersey has the Devils interested in free-agent defenceman Dany Markov (who would be a short-term substitute for injured defenseman Colin White). The Devils have some cap issues to deal with as they are $2 million US under the $50.3-million limit ,and it is believed that Markov was seeing something in the $3-million range.
- Always looking for ways to improve their power play, the Buffalo Sabres experimented with using five forwards on the PP this exhibition season. Saturday vs. the Penguins head coach Lindy Ruff used Derek Roy at centre, Thomas Vanek on the left side and Maxim Afinogenov on the right along with Tim Connolly and Jason Pominville on the point.
- Talk out of Philadelphia has GM Paul Holmgren looking at shopping defenceman Denis Gautier to bring in a right winger to replace Scottie Upshall (some within the organization don’t feel Stefan Ruzicka is ready). Gautier’s $2.1- million contract still has both this season and next left on it, which may make a trade difficult but not impossible.
- Another reason to believe the Carolina Hurricanes will be back huge this season: netminder Cam Ward finished the exhibition season with a 0.77 GAA and a .971 save percentage spread over appearances in three games and 156 minutes of work. Ward worked on his conditioning all off-season and dropped as much as 20 pounds.
- The Hockey News is reporting that the NHLPA would love to hire MLBPA general council Michael Weiner to take on the position of Executive Director, but Weiner is staying with baseball with the hope of one day replacing PA boss Donald Fehr.
- According to head coach Ken Hitchcock ,Manny Malhotra has been the best player overall at the Blue Jackets' training camp. Don’t be surprised if he centres the top line flanked by Rick Nash and David Vyborny.
- Former Team Canada world junior standout Andrew Cogliano will be in the Edmonton Oilers' lineup for the season opener against the San Jose Sharks Thursday. Sam Gagner, however, is still on the bubble but has impressed head coach Craig MacTavish.
- In case you missed it: Brent Sopel signed a $1.3-million contract Friday with the Chicago Blackhawks... the Atlanta Thrashers placed defenceman (and sometimes winger) Joel Kwiatkowski on waivers... Islanders head coach Ted Nolan missed his team’s last two games attending his brother's funeral.
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About the Author
Jeff Marek, one of sports talk radio's brightest stars, is the host of the all-new HNIC Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. A twelve-year sports-talk radio veteran, the Toronto native provides intelligent hockey talk, insight and debate during the two-hour national daily drive-time hockey program.
Well known for his previous work on Leafs Lunch on AM 640 Toronto Radio, Marek is one of sports talk radio's most respected personalities. He joined AM 640 in 2000, hosting The Jeff Marek Show, a nightly open-line talk show, while working as the stations' morning news anchor. He quickly became the director of sports news and joined host Bill Watters on Leafs Lunch.
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Comments
Sue
I was one of the many British people who made the trek from north east England to our capital at the weekend to soak up the atmosphere of "real" ice hockey. For me it was a chance in a lifetime to see the Ducks, and it was brilliant.
I wish hockey would catch on here but we can never hope to emulate the passion in a country dominated by football, cricket, rugby and football.
Long live the ice!!!!
Posted October 3, 2007 09:16 AM
Tim
Alberta
Good for the Oilers. Not only should we bring up Cogliano but we should also let Gagner step up. If we are rebuilding then lets give them a chance.
Posted October 1, 2007 01:39 PM