Now, THIS is great news.
St. Louis, Kansas City Get Ice Breakers
This is not a practice NHL games like we have seen at Sprint Center so far. This is REAL hockey. These games count.
Sprint Center gets the Ice Breaker tournament in 2012. The 2009 Tournament will be in Omaha, 2010 and 2011 will be in St. Louis (I feel road trip coming). The 2009 Tournament teams are:
Nebraska-Omaha, Army, UMass Lowell and St. Lawrence. The 2008 tournament was in Boston and had
eventual National Champion Boston University, UMass, Michigan State and North Dakota.
“We are very excited at the prospect of bringing our event to these outstanding venues,” said CCHA commissioner Tom Anastos, who also serves as president of the Hockey Commissioners Association, which puts on the event.
We won’t know who is going to be playing in this tournament for quite some time, but how great would it be if we could get Minnesota or Denver or Colorado College or Notre Dame to come to KC. Or, heck, what if we get all four(probably won’t happen)?
I LOVE it that these games will be here. Kudos to AEG and the Kansas City Sports Commission and Foundation for getting this one done.
Four great hockey games in two days. It’s three and a half years away and I can already hardly wait. Let’s hope the next step is the Frozen Four someday.
Yeah, this is a cool deal. Even though I consider myself a hockey player and fan, I’m pretty disillusioned with the NHL. Twenty years of waiting for a team has taken it’s toll. A lot of people think about the AHL, but I’d like to see one of the city universities start a program targeted to go D-I or push both KU and Mizzou to move forward. Even now, I think the Border War on Ice could draw at the Sprint Center if AEG put out a full-on pro-style marketing drive.
As it stands now, I think we’re going to lose KU to Topeka, despite good attendance at the Pepsi Center.