The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
It's not every day that people will enter a lottery where the lucky winners will earn a chance to spend money instead of take some home. Over 700,000 hockey fans were ready to become a part of hockey history, entering their name into the Edmonton Oilers Heritage Game lottery, for a chance to buy four tickets. Entry forms were stacked knee deep at an Edmonton radio station as 1,750 names were drawn. The lucky winners can now purchase up to four tickets, ranging in price from $60 to $135 for an old-timers game featuring Wayne Gretzky and many of his old Oilers buddies against Guy LaFleur and some former members of the Montreal Canadiens. The November 22 game will be followed by a National Hockey League regular-season game between the Oilers and Canadiens. Over 52,000 hockey fans are expected to attend the outdoor games. About 700,000 entries came in from as far away as China, Finland and Britain. Winners were drawn from every province except Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. One winner is from Fairbanks, Alaska. One entry was mailed in a box that also contained an alarm clock which began ringing at 9:30 p.m., scaring staff who thought it might be a bomb. The box was fished out and, because it had been touched, the entry inside had to be accepted under draw rules. Season ticket holders had first dibs on about 30,000 tickets with the rest going to various sponsors, owners and other NHL teams. The games are expected to draw about 52,500 fans to a man-made rink at Commonwealth Stadium, the city's professional football venue. The crowd will go down as the biggest in the NHL's history. The cost to stage the games is estimated at $2.5 million to $3 million.
