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\n The NHL announced Friday that Chicago and Ottawa will play two regular season games in D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany this December. The matchups are part of the league’s effort to expand hockey’s popularity in Europe, featuring German star Tim St\u00fctzle facing off against rising talent Connor Bedard.\n <\/p>\n
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Next season will see the Ottawa Senators and Chicago Blackhawks travel overseas for two regular season contests in Germany, according to Friday\u2019s announcement from the National Hockey League.<\/p>\n
D\u00fcsseldorf\u2019s PSD Bank Dome will serve as the venue for these NHL Global Series contests scheduled for December 18th and 20th, taking place just prior to the league\u2019s traditional holiday hiatus.<\/p>\n
These international matchups represent a collaborative effort between the NHL and the NHL Players\u2019 Association to expand hockey\u2019s reach in Germany, which ranks among Europe\u2019s most densely populated nations. Germany\u2019s national men\u2019s hockey squad recently finished sixth during the Winter Olympics in Milan.<\/p>\n
Leading that German roster is 24-year-old forward Tim St\u00fctzle, who currently paces Ottawa in scoring with 70 points through 64 contests this season, recording 30 goals and 40 assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think German hockey has been growing a lot and there are a lot of great players from there,\u201d said St\u00fctzle, who hails from Viersen and represents one of seven German players currently active in the NHL.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now that (the NHL has) been committing to playing games there and supporting kids as well, it\u2019s huge. Hopefully it gets more people to play hockey in Germany. It\u2019s really exciting news.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago will feature Canadian sensation Connor Bedard, the 20-year-old forward who tops his squad with 35 assists and 62 total points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when we found out, the whole team was pretty fired up,\u201d said Bedard. \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for us. Just spreading (the game) to other parts of the world and showing our skill set and what we do over here, we\u2019re excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Germany previously welcomed one NHL regular season contest in 2011 when Buffalo defeated Los Angeles 4-2 in Berlin. The Blackhawks also claimed a 3-1 victory over local club Eisb\u00e4ren Berlin during a 2019 exhibition match.<\/p>\n
During 2023\u2019s Global Series in Stockholm, Sweden, St\u00fctzle helped guide Ottawa to victories against both Detroit and Minnesota.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a team perspective, this is good for us, really, because we get to showcase one of our stars in Europe,\u201d stated Senators president Cyril Leeder. \u201cHockey is a global game now. Of the team sports, maybe soccer and hockey probably (are) top two in the world. So you know, there are fans now that are following our team from Germany, from Sweden, all over the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL announced Friday that Chicago and Ottawa will play two regular season games in D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[56123,56124,56117,56125,56119,56120,56118,56121,5,4,72,25,5157,73,56122],"class_list":{"0":"post-501850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-102-3","9":"tag-102-3fm","10":"tag-fine-day","11":"tag-fine-day-102-3","12":"tag-fine-day-fm","13":"tag-fine-day-media","14":"tag-fine-day-radio","15":"tag-have-a-fine-day","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-ottawa","19":"tag-ottawa-senators","20":"tag-ottawasenators","21":"tag-senators","22":"tag-weller-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116223983770122710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}