The National Hockey League announced yesterday that the Philadelphia Flyers will be opening the 2019-20 season in Prague, Czech Republic against the Chicago Blackhawks as part of the league’s Global Series. It is the third season the league is doing the Global Series and it marks the first time the Orange and Black will be a part of the series. It also marks the sixth straight season the Flyers will not be opening the season in Philadelphia. From the team’s website:
“The Philadelphia Flyers, in conjunction with the National Hockey League, announced today that the team will participate in the 2019 NHL Global Series this September and October. The Flyers will complete their 2019 Training Camp in Lausanne, Switzerland and will play an exhibition game against Lausanne HC on Monday, September 30 at Vaudoise Arena. They will then head to the Czech Republic, where they will face the Chicago Blackhawks on October 4 at O2 Arena in Prague in the first game of the regular season. The games will be the first in the franchise’s history, regular season or otherwise, to be played outside of North America.”
This game will be a big deal for the franchise overall (as illustrated by the last sentence in the excerpt above), but it’ll be especially big for both Jakub Voracek and Radko Gudas. Both are from the Czech city of Kladno, which according to the internet is a little over a half hour away from Prague. For the Chicago Blackhawks, forward David Kampf, who has 18 points 57 games into his second NHL season, is the only player on the current roster that is from the Czech Republic.
As for the exhibition game in Switzerland, Lausanne HC has a few names you may (and I stress may) recognize. Former NHLers currently on the squad are:
- Joel Vermin
- Torrey Mitchell
- Ronalds Kenins
- Dustin Jeffrey
- Cory Emmerton
- Christoph Bertschy
- Petteri Lindbohm/
The Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres will also take part in the league’s Global Series next season, as they square off on November 8th and 9th of this year in Stockholm, Sweden’s Ericsson Globe Arena.
