Two preparation matches for the 2023-24 North American Ice Hockey League (NHL) season will take place, for the first time, in Australia, the NHL announced on Tuesday. The Arizona Coyotes and the Los Angeles Kings will face each other twice on September 23 and 24 at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, where the Australian Open tennis tournament takes place each year. “This historic announcement reinforces the NHL’s strategy to grow the international popularity of ice hockey“, she explained in her press release.
These will be the first matches hosted by the NHL in the Southern Hemisphere, the organization added. The NHL has been organizing preparation and even regular season matches abroad since the late 1970s, in Europe, notably in Scandinavia, Japan and more recently in China.
In October 2022, six matches called “Global Series», including four during the regular season, took place in Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Finland.