The NHL Global Series will return to Europe in 2022, the National Hockey League (North American hockey league) announced Thursday, which will relocate part of its championship abroad for the first time since 2019. The Nashville Predators , the San Jose Sharks, the Colorado Avalanche and the Columbus Blue Jackets will participate in this 2022 edition.
Two exhibition matches and four counting for the regular season will be organized in four European cities. Nashville and San Jose will open the 2022-23 NHL regular season at the O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic on October 7-8. This will be a first in Europe for the Nashville Predators.
Pre-season game against European teams
The Arena in the Czech capital, on the other hand, has already hosted five NHL regular season matches since 2008, the last of which was on October 4, 2019, when the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3. Just before this meeting counting for the American championship, the two franchises will be entitled to a preseason match against European teams: the Predators will play against the Swiss of SC Bern on October 3 in the Swiss capital, while the Sharks will face the Eisbaren Berlin at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin on 4.
The Colorado and Columbus franchises will move further north to Finland in Tampere which will host two official NHL Championship games for the first time on November 4 and 5 at Nokia Arena. Tampere, a two-hour drive north of Helsinki, is the hometown of Blue Jackets striker Patrik Laine and general manager Jarmo Kekalainen.
«What’s different for the North Americans is that they can play in their hometown, but for the Europeans it’s pretty rare that we get that opportunity, so that should be niceLaine commented. The NHL played 32 preseason games and 28 regular season games in Europe from 2007-2011 (NHL Premiere Series) and 2017-19 (NHL Global Series).
