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Tickets from ticket master
Just when it seemed the Colorado Avalanche couldn't get any better offensively, they added Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne to reunite one of the National Hockey League's most explosive scoring tandems.
The buzz around the NHL as teams prepare for Wednesday's start of the 2003-04 season is that Colorado will play the same crowd pleasing, run-and-gun style as the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s.
The addition of
former Anaheim Mighty Ducks ' captain Kariya and "Finnish Flash" Selanne
ramps up an attack that already includes Swedish superstar Peter Forsberg, Joe
Sakic and Milan Hejduk, who scored 50 goals last season.
Besides some big names changing teams, some familiar faces like Patrick Roy
and Roger Neilson have also left the spotlight this season. Ticketmaster
There is also uncertainty over a new collective-bargaining agreement. With a labour stoppage looming next September, many teams stood pat and declined to sign new players over the summer, preferring to wait and see what happens.
The league says it lost 300 million dollars in operations and Buffalo and Ottawa went bankrupt. Cash-strapped Pittsburgh also shed salaries.
"Player salaries have increased at a rate event faster than our revenues," said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
"That is at the core of the economic problems that we are facing. We have disparities between revenues and expenses. We need, for the long haul, an agreed upon system that will address those disparitites."
This season could also mark the final NHL campaigns for New York's Mark Messier and Pittsburgh's player-owner Mario Lemieux. Ticketmaster
Goaltending great Roy retired, leaving Colorado with a hole to fill in the net. But Czech star Dominik Hasek decided a one-year retirement was enough and will return to the Detroit Red Wings ' net.
If Hasek can get the rust out of his system quickly and regain the form that earned him the nickname "Dominator", the Red Wings should make another serious challenge for the Stanley Cup.
Stung by criticism over his vague "obstruction justice" rule last year, Bettman decided not to tinker with the rules heading into the new season. But the flap over the size of the goaltenders' pads is expected to continue.
The success of the Edmonton Oilers Heritage Game has helped dispel the myth that the game is in trouble in Canada.
The Oilers have already sold more than 50,000 tickets to the first regular-season outdoor game in league history.
They will face the Montreal Canadiens in a sold-out game on a purpose-built rink set up on the infield of Commonwealth Stadium -- the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1978 Commonwealth Games.
Season-ticket holders snapped up 90 percent of seats in a matter of days.
"It has been crazy. I got requests from all over the world. This is much bigger than we expected," said Oilers spokesman Bill Tuele.
The NHL also locked up long-term television deals recently with the two dominant Canadian networks, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and cable sports channel TSN.
And with rapidly emerging stars like Boston's Joe Thornton, Minnesota's Marian Gaborik, Detroit's Henrick Zetterberg, Tampa Bay's Vincent Lecavalier and Calgary's Jarome Iginla, there is no danger of the NHL losing appeal with fans, Lemieux said. Ticketmaster
"We have a lot of good young talented players that are coming up," said Lemieux. "I am sure somebody is going to surface and take over the (leading) role in the future."
The Thrashers' Dany Heatley, last year's NHL All-Star Game Most Valuable Player, was arguably that person up until last week when he allegedly crashed his Ferrari into a post and brick wall, ripping the vehicle in half.
His passenger and teammate Dan Snyder died on Sunday from his injuries.
With Heatley's season threatened, the onus will be on others to step into the spotlight.
That could be Boston's Thornton or even Ottawa's emerging star Jason Spezza, who many feel has earned a regular spot in the lineup after an impressive playoff performance last spring.
Some are picking Ottawa to win the cup and the Senators have dedicated their season to their former assistant coach Neilson, who died in June of cancer.
The road to the cup figures to go through the defending champion New Jersey Devils , who have All-Star goaltender Martin Brodeur and four top defensemen back.
The Devils also re-signed sniper Jeff Friesen and grabbed free agents Igor Larionov and Erik Rasmussen to gear up for another cup run.