After having played almost a decade each for Montreal, Chicago and Detroit, Chris Chelios, aged 47, is in the free agent market looking for an NHL team that could use a third-line defenseman who has seen everything. He sure has. Most NHLers his age are not just retired but long retired. Or maybe captaining a minor league farm team, as a name to draw fans and a wise old hand to ooze hockey wisdom over the prospects. Chelios needs four more seasons to tie Gordie Howe's longevity record, which might seem a stretch, but, hey, look, he's taking his supplements.
Obscured by all the noise about getting a seventh NHL franchise into Hamilton, Ontario, is the fact that Abbotsford, British Columbia, is about to join the small number of Canadian cities with pro hockey teams, when the Abbotsford Heat begin play in the AHL this fall. They'll reside in the city's new 7018-seat Entertainment and Sports Centre and serve as top farm team to the Calgary Flames. Given the NHL's determination to keep the Canadian content of their league at six teams or less, maybe a few more towns should look at the AHL. Hey, Kingston, Ontario, they're gettin' ahead a ya! For Abbotsford is now also a university town, home to the newly created University of the Fraser Valley.