To begin the 2007-08 season, the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings embarked on an ambassador expedition to London to further NHL ties overseas
Saturday the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings will be making NHL history as the first two teams to play an outdoor regular season hockey game (an exhibition game was played between the Kings and Rangers in 1991 in Las Vegas) on the West Coast, and in a Southern state. In fact, the game will be the first major hockey game played in the South in North America’s history.
This isn’t the first time the two crosstown rivals have made NHL history though. In September of 2007, the Ducks and Kings played the first regular season NHL game overseas. It was announced that the two teams were selected to participate in the inaugural NHL premiere series at the 02 Stadium in London. This was not the first time the Ducks had played a game overseas. The Mighty Ducks and Vancouver Canucks played a 2-game series in Tokyo, Japan on October 4th and 5th, 1997. Vancouver won the first game by a score of 3-2, and the Mighty Ducks won the next night by the same margin.
Los Angeles had a brief period of time to prepare for the season opener with two exhibition games in Salzburg, Austria on September 25th and 26th. They played Red Bull Salzburg on the 25th and won 7-6. The next day they won a match against Farjestad Karlstad with a 3-2 score. Meanwhile the Ducks spent one of their last days with the Stanley Cup they won that June, as it made the trip to London, the names of the champions forever engraved in its many rings.
September 29th, 2007 marked the official start to the NHL season. With 17,000 fans from Europe and North America alike, and the Ducks being the first teams to don the new Reebok EDGE NHL jerseys, the puck dropped on a historic hockey game in the new O2 Arena between the reigning Stanley Cup Champions and their interstate rivals.The Kings dominated a good majority of the game. Mike Cammalleri’s first period goal and first goal of the season got things started with an assist from future Duck Lubomir Visnovsky. The Kings would add two more goals, a powerplay goal by LA Kings great Rob Blake and another powerplay marker from Mike Cammalleri.
Anaheim got its first goal of the season from top rookie forward (and Calder finalist for rookie of the year) Bobby Ryan on the powerplay from Chris Pronger and Francois Beauchemin with a little under 7 minutes to go in the third period. Trailing 3-1, Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle pulled goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov for the extra skater, which allowed Michal Handzus an empty net goal to seal up the first game of the season with a 4-1 Kings victory.
The next day, in the same arena, it was the Ducks’ turn to take it to the Kings. In the first period the Ducks scored twice on two powerplays with goals from Corey Perry (assisted by Andy McDonald and Pronger) and Chris Kunitz (assisted by McDonald and Perry. In the second period Perry made it a 3-point night for himself and a 3-0 lead on the Kings at 2:53 with a slapshot set up by defensemen Kent Huskins and Joe Dipenta. A little over a minute later, Travis Moen, with help from Rob Niedermayer and Todd Marchant, made it 4-0 Ducks.
The Kings could only mustered one goal from Cammalleri, his third of the year, and the Ducks and Kings traded 4-1 victories and defeats before heading back home. Returning to North American NHL hockey proved to be a tough transition for both clubs. Including the loss to Anaheim, the Kings lost 5 straight games and 6 of 7 games from September 30th to October 18th before rebounding with 6 wins in 8 games. The Ducks returned to the States with struggles of their own, losing 8 of their 11 games in the month of October (2 coming in the shootout).
The Ducks and Kings will once again make history this weekend playing the first hockey game at Dodger’s Stadium in its long history. The event is sure to be a spectacle and possibly a once in a life time opportunity for those in attendance.
Copyright 2013 SportSpeak LLC, all rights reserved. For more coverage, follow @SportSpeakLA and @SportSpeakOC on Twitter.
