SASKATOON – NHL pre-season action will return to Saskatoon next season. The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators will face off against each other at SaskTel Centre on Oct. 4, 2016.
“Very exciting, an original six team, wherever the Leafs play in Canada, there’s a zillion jerseys in the stands,” said Scott Ford, executive director at SaskTel Centre.
The exhibition game will mark the first visit to Saskatoon for Maple Leafs head coach and hometown favourite, Mike Babcock.
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NHL rosters are often subject to change but Toronto currently has Regina’s Tyler Bozak while Zack Smith, of Maple Creek, and Saskatoon’s Jared Cowen are on Ottawa’s roster.
In September 2015, Saskatoon hosted an NHL pre-season game between the Edmonton Oilers and the Minnesota Wild.
John Graham, the president of the On Ice Management Group, is confident that ticket sales will be significantly stronger than this year’s game which only drew in approximately 7,500 fans.
“My belief is that this will be, I mean the requests we’ve already had for tickets and that was part of the reason we sort of had to push up this announcement was because every time you talk to somebody, it was a hundred tickets.”
Tickets will be available to the general public at 10 a.m. CT on Nov. 9 and range in price from $47.25 to $99.75, plus service charges.
Jack Haskins contributed to this story
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