There are officially 86 days until the Bruins step on the ice to play again.
86 days.
Granted, the first game will be mostly rookies, and preseason games are always sort of entertaining for different reasons than regular season games, but still - just a little under three months until the hockey drought ends.
The Bruins announced their entire preseason schedule today, which includes games here in America against the Islanders, Capitals, Canadiens, and Panthers before the B's jet over to Belfast (yes, the Belfast in Northern Ireland) to play against the Giants Select side.
The Belfast Giants are Ireland's "premier ice hockey team." They play in the Elite Ice Hockey League of the United Kingdom, and won the league's playoff championship last year. They play their games in Odyssey Arena in Belfast and have a dedicated fanbase, whose major website can be found
here. In their ten years of existence, they've never finished below fourth in their league, and have won two league championships and two playoff championships. They've even had an ex-NHL star, Theo Fleury, play for them.
It should be an interesting game in which we see a lot more of the rookies, considering Belfast's performance in the Gardiner Cup last year. The Gardiner Cup was a tournament between the Belfast Giants, the Edinburgh Capitals, and the AHL's Toronto Marlies and Hamilton Bulldogs. Belfast scored no goals and were eliminated in the first round, losing 7-0 against Hamilton. Needless to say, if an AHL team could demolish the Giants like that, it's a little scary to think what a top-line NHL team could do. So, I'm predicting we see a lot of P-Bruins and rookies playing in that one.
The Bruins, from there, will move on to Liberec in the Czech Republic, to play Liberec Bili Tygri HC (the Liberec White Tigers). Liberec should prove to be more of a challenge, as the Czech Extraliga is ranked by the IIHF as the third strongest in Europe behind Russia and Finland. (Great Britain's EIHL, by comparison, is ranked 21st). Liberec has several former NHL players, including current captain Petr Nedved. Of note is Liberec defenseman Martin Cakajik, who actually played for HC Trencin Dukla at the same time that Zdeno Chara did, back in 2001-2002. (Granted, Chara only played 8 games there, but they were still teammates.) Iiiinteresting.
From Liberec it's on to Prague to open the 2010-2011 regular season against the Coyotes on October 9th and October 10th, at Prague's O2 arena, which seats 17,300 people, comparable to any NHL arena on this side of the Atlantic. It should be a fun matchup, with a combined seven Czech players on the two teams getting to play in front of their home country, barring any roster changes between now and then.
But before the preseason we have the draft, free agency day, and development camp - it's definitely shaping up to be an interesting offseason.
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