Game Day No. 3

The team is on its way to the Valley as I type this, and in a matter of hours, we'll be able to see how the revamped Bees do against the "rebuilding" Bucks in their first of 14 meetings this season.

Here is my preview for this weekend that ran in today's Times. You can read Bryan Benway's take here.

For more in-depth information, you can read Rio broadcaster (Vice President, Communications) Rich Bocchini's game notes.

Brian Sandalow has his take on tonight's game and some other things, as well as a "featurette" about veteran forward Robin Bouchard.

Greg Rajan has an immigration status update for IceRays winger John McNabb and a preview of the weekend in Corpus.

John Holland of the Rapid City Journal has an interesting preview of the Rush's weekend, which features games against the IceRays, Killer Bees and Bucks.

You can follow all of tonight's CHL games here and read Bob Hoffman's "Shots from the Point" for this week here.

In addition to the games between the Bucks and Bees and IceRays and Rush, there will be contests between the Texas Brahmas and Amarillo Gorillas, Mississippi RiverKings and Oklahoma City Blazers, Arizona Sundogs and Colorado Eagles, Wichita Thunder and Rocky Mountain Rage, and Odessa Jackalopes and New Mexico Scorpions.

The Arizona-Colorado game should be a good one, and I'm pretty sure the popular consensus is that Tracy Egeland will absolutely lose it if the Rage fall to the Thunder tonight.

In the NHL, it's a fairly slow night, with games between the New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets, Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils, Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators, Atlanta Thrashers and Detroit Red Wings, San Jose Sharks and Florida Panthers, and Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues.

Last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Boston Bruins 4-2, the Dallas Stars picked up a 5-3 win over the Devils, the Pittsburgh Penguins topped the Carolina Hurricanes 4-1 (with all four goals coming in the final 12 minutes of the game), the Buffalo Sabres got a 4-3 OT win over Minnesota Wild, the Calgary Flames beat the Nashville Predators 5-3, the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-1, and the Phoenix Coyotes topped the Washington Capitals 2-1.