Los Angeles Kings president Luc Robitaille is in his native Quebec this week where he announced that the Kings will play two pre-season exhibition games at Quebec City's Videotron Centre in October, 2024 prior to the beginning of the 2024-25 NHL season.
Check it out:
Translated from French:
Confirmation of the Kings' two preparatory matches in Quebec in October 2024. Two training sessions will be open to the public. “We wanted to eat real poutine,” jokes Luc Robitaille.
- Mikaël Lalancette
"Why", you ask? That sweet, sweet cashola.
The city of Quebec is reportedly committing $5 million to the Kings for hosting the games and a week of their training camp.
Check it out:
Look, I'm not a Quebec resident so this is no skin off my back but if I were I'm not sure I'd want my tax dollars going to a billionaire NHL owner.
More from the Kings' official press release announcement:
Well, it’s not quite Australia, but we’re on the road again come the preseason.
As part of the club’s 2024 preseason schedule, the LA Kings will play two games in Québec City on October 3 and October 5, it was announced this morning by the team during a news conference in Quebec.
The Kings will faceoff against the Boston Bruins on Thursday, October 3, followed by a game against the Florida Panthers on Saturday, October 5. The team will hold a portion of its 2024 training camp at the Videotron Centre in Québec City, scheduled to begin on October 2. The visit to Quebec City will be the first for the NHL in more than five years, playing in a building that is widely considered to be NHL ready.
Today’s announcement coincides with the Kings’ inability to play home preseason games in advance of the 2024-25 season due to the final phase of renovations taking place at Crypto.com Arena. While the Kings were able to host exhibition games in the fall of 2023, all home preseason contests came in the final week of the preseason, impacted by the second wave of renovations. The final set of enhancements are scheduled for completion prior to the start of the regular season and the Kings will return to hosting preseason home games at Crypto.com Arena for the 2025-26 season. The Kings will announce additional 2024 preseason contests at a later date.
On top of the team benefits, the Kings currently have forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois and Phillip Danault on their NHL roster. Both players are from the Province of Québec and played their junior hockey in the QMJHL. Defenseman Jordan Spence, while not from the Province of Québec, played his junior hockey in the QMJHL as well. Certainly some ties on the current Kings roster heading into the games in QC.
Interestingly, there's nothing in the Kings' announcement about the cool $5 million that they're about to get from switching pre-season venues. Funny, that...
