A Pair of Schedules

Per dueling press releases, the NHL has released its national television schedule — which, by my count, has 26 Red Wings games in the States — and the AHL has released its full regular season schedule.

Since you don’t need another source spewing the schedule, especially considering the Wings’ official site has already made the coverage details available on the existing table, we thought we’d take a look at some different dates to mark on your calendar:

:: OPENING NIGHT. It’s October 7th and it’s against the Ottawa Senators. I, for one, expect Johan Franzen to score five goals, and point to Paul MacLean’s mustache.

:: WINGS WINGS TUESDAYS. If you’re not familiar with the age-old Petrella-household tradition, Wings Wings Tuesday is when a Red Wings game falls on a Tuesday and you can get discounted chicken wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. Depending on your market, they’re usually marked down to the 30-50 cent range for the delicious, delicious morsels of poultry happiness. This season, there are SIXTEEN(!) WWTs. To put that number in perspective, I gained nine pounds on Wings Wings Tuesdays last year… and there were only five. This year’s WWT Schedule is as follows

• October 25 at Columbus
• November 1 vs. Minnesota
• November 8 vs. Colorado
• November 15 at St. Louis
• December 6 at St. Louis
• December 13 at Pittsburgh
• December 27 vs. St. Louis
• January 3 at Dallas
• January 10 at New York Islanders
• January 17 at Dallas
• January 31 at Calgary
• February 14 vs. Dallas (order some fried pickles for your Valentine)
• February 21 at Chicago
• February 28 at Columbus
• March 6 at Philadelphia
• March 13 at Los Angeles

:: BACK-TO-BACKS. The Wings play 14 sets of back-to-back dates, the same amount as 2010-11 and one more than the Olympic-shortened 2009-10.

:: AFTERNOON DELIGHT. The Wings play five matinees this season, beginning November 19 against Los Angeles and culminating in the final game of the season against Chicago.

The Griffins schedule was also released today, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear there were only six teams in the AHL given the amount of times they play Rockford and Hamilton. They don’t play the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins this year, which means I won’t get to sit in my father-in-law’s seats four inches from the glass and check out the future of the Red Wings. Which is too bad, because I love me some minor hockey.

All Friday games (of which there are sixteen this season) feature $1 Beer and $1 Hot Dog promotions. That flash of light you just saw out of the corner of your eye was Larry Murphy searching for a map of Western Michigan.