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A KHL team wants to have an outdoor game... in a 2,000 year old amphitheater!
KHL training camps are underway and as the league prepares for its seventh season, Mettallurg Magnitogorsk has plans to take the outdoor game idea a unique level, one we saw for the first time two years ago.
Metallurg and Traktor Chelyabinsk play five times this season, but there are early talks for one of those meetings to take place outdoors. In taking an idea from Austria's Erste Bank Eishockey League, they would like to put the game inside a 2,000-year old Roman amphitheatre in Verona, Italy.
Ekbald has a concussion.
Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad, the first overall selection in this year's Entry Draft, suffered what is being called an upper-body injury while playing in a game between Canada's U20 hopefuls and the Czech Republic in Montreal last night.
Ekblad was knocked to the ice by two Czech players as he tried to gain the blue line on a third period rush with Canada leading 5-2 with just over six minutes to go.
Brett MacLean is doing much better.
A little more than two years ago, Brett MacLean's life changed forever.
Coming off a fourth consecutive 20+ goal AHL season, MacLean was enjoying his summer by playing a pick-up hockey game in Owen Sound, Ontario. After playing 18 games in the NHL in his previous two seasons combined, MacLean had aspirations of becoming a full-time NHLer.
That dream evaporated on July 2, 2012 when the then 23-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest during that pick-up game. In an instant, his professional hockey career was over. Doctors inserted a cardiac defibrillator which prevents MacLean from playing elite-level contact sports. He was forced to retire.
Now 25, MacLean has been able to regain some semblance of normality in his life. He is active and able to play sports with few restrictions, including recreational hockey.