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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Penguins Pravda

The league will send the Penguins and Senators to the Czech Republic to play two overseas regular season games like the league did this year.
In other news, sources have also indicated that the league will kick off in Europe next year with two games in Prague between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators.

It had previously been reported that the Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning would play those games.
The NHL is already working on next years schedule and considering more trips for games overseas while adjusting the schedule to open one week later while abandoning the unbalanced schedule.
Sources say there was a push by some U.S.-based teams to push the start of the regular season back even further because of competition with the baseball playoffs and football season. But the league, with the permission of the NHL Players' Association, has agreed to start the 2008-09 season one week later.

In order to accommodate the change, the league will further compress the schedule early in the season rather than have the season run one week longer.
I love the condensed schedule, but I fear I am in the minority here. I wish hockey was played every day. But the players will not have rest and recovery time that they need to stay healthy.

Critics of the league will have a field day with the new scheduling plans as it will rip off the west coast chances to see Crosby in action on their rinks.

[Via: The Hockey News]

2 comments:

asdfuhzknůl said...

Prague is a far better choice than London or any other "exotic" hockey destination. For the major part of the czech and slovak hockey fans this might be their only possibility to see players like Crosby, Malkin, Spezza or Heatley live...

Anonymous said...

Still not on board with the overseas games, but I like the shake-up.

Oh yeah, and you mentioned edginess - I gave you more edginess today. Enjoy.