Zlecone: NHL to play first-ever regular-season game in Germany; Buffalo Sabres face off against the Los Angeles Kings Oct. 8, 2011 in Berlin

Tickets will go on sale Friday, April 15. More information on tickets is available here: http://www.o2world.com/nhl. Meanwhile, each NHL team will be offering travel packages. More information will be published on the team Web sites as it becomes available.

Additionally, the Kings will play a special exhibition game at the O2 World Hamburg, Germany on Tuesday, Oct. 4. Tickets will also go on sale Friday, April 15. More information on tickets for the exhibition game is available here: http://www.o2world-hamburg.de/kings.

The NHL is a truly global League with approximately 25% of NHL players this season having been born outside of North America. Sabres center Jochen Hecht hails from Mannheim, Germany, and left wing Thomas Vanek is from Austria. Other notable European players currently playing for the featured NHL teams include Anze Kopitar (Slovenia), Michal Handzus (Slovakia) and Alexei Ponikarovsky (Ukraine) of the Kings.

This is not the first time an NHL team has taken to German ice. After the 1958-59 season the Rangers and the Boston Bruins toured Europe including games in Berlin, Dortmund, Essen and Krefeld. In 1990, the St. Louis Blues and Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers participated in the Epson Cup against West German League champion EG Dusseldorf. In 2008, the Tampa Bay Lightning scored a 4-1 victory in a exhibition game against the hometown Eisbaeren Berlin at O2 World Arena in the 2008 NHL Premiere Challenge. In 2010, the San Jose Sharks defeated the Adler Mannheim Eagles 3-2 in a shootout in front of 13,600 fans at SAP Arena in Mannheim.

A complete overseas history of the NHL is available on http://media.NHL.com.

More information on 2011 Compuware NHL Premiere(TM) will be released at a later date, including broadcast information, training camp schedules and complete preseason schedules.

NHL, the NHL Shield and Stanley Cup are registered trademarks and NHL Premiere and NHL Face-Off are trademarks of the National Hockey League. NHL and NHL team marks are the property of the NHL and its teams. All Rights Reserved.

NHLPA is a registered trademark of the National Hockey League Players' Association. All Rights Reserved.

For more information:

Jonathan Weatherdon

National Hockey League Players' Association

tel. (416) 313-2316

e-mail: jweatherdon@nhlpa.com

Schuyler Baehman

National Hockey League

tel. (212) 789-2097

e-mail: sbaehman@nhl.com

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Źródło informacji: APA-OTS