OVIE AND SID COME CALLING

A coast-to-coast Hockey Night in Canada home-opening test Oct. 6 against the Vancouver Canucks, the mouth-watering prospect of a November Sid-Ovie twin-bill and New Year's Eve partying with San Jose Sharks.
Anybody ready for some hockey?

The Flames, under the direction of new head coach Bill Peters, have unveiled their full 2018-2019 regular-season schedule, the quest for a berth in the Stanley Cup playdowns beginning out West-Coast way at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on Wednesday, Oct. 3, and wrapping up a shade over six months later at the Scotiabank Saddledome on April 6 against the Edmonton Oilers.
A few of the home dates to circle on your calendar include:
* Oct. 25 and 27, when Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the Pittsburgh Penguins pay a visit followed in short order, 48 hours later, by Alex Ovechkin and the reigning Stanley Cup-champion Washington Capitals. The Caps provide a rare Saturday 'Dome matinee, with puck drop at 2 p.m.
\For Original Six devotees, the Montreal Canadiens visit on Nov. 7, while Austin Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs hit town March 4. Both those west-east skirmishes are 7 p.m. starts.
\The arch-rivals from the north make the three-hour trek to Calgary only twice to try and stoke the Battle of Alberta up to golden-era levels. Connor McDavid and his Edmonton Oilers here Nov. 17 and then again, as mentioned, for Game 82.

*The surprise storyline of last season, the Pacific Division-kingpin Las Vegas Golden Knights, are the out-of-town callers Nov. 19 and March 10.
Calgary's longest homestand of the campaign runs five games, Jan. 9-18, opening up versus Nathan McKinnon's Colorado Avalanche and also including trips in by the Florida Panthers, Arizona Coyotes, Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings.
The road schedule is highlighted by a pair of taxing four-game junkets, Jan. 2 through 7, with stops in Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, and later on, Feb. 9 to 16, winding through Vancouver, Tampa Bay and Miami before finishing up at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
An interesting note: The Flames' Feb. 26 road date against the NY Islanders - the middle portion of a three-game junket that begins in Ottawa and concludes in New Jersey - will be one of a dozen games contested back on Long Island at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the longtime base of the four-in-a-row Stanley Cup champs of the early '80s, rather than at the team's current regular home, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
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