Meanwhile, there was a nearly sold-out 02 arena waiting for the 6 NHLers to skate for Kladno or Slavia Prague at 6PM Prague time on Wednesday. USA Hockey (i.e. the organization responsible for processing the transfer cards) was allegedly ignoring the Czech Hockey Federation calls, emails... and eventually claimed they would not sign them "unless Bettman called." So, at 3 AM on Wednesday, Mighty #68 picked up his phone, called his friend Brendan S., who took his cellphone straight to Bettman's office, and yada, yada, yada - the transfer cards were sent in time for the players to be approved...
Jagr jokingly blamed himself for the loss (2:3, with Slavia's Sobotka (STL) and Cervenka (CAL) each having 3 points) on himself, claiming that if he only knew how the Slavia duo would play, he would have never lobbied for their cards to be approved.
Incidentally, the 15,575 spectators is one of the largest attendances in the history of the league. The happy owner of the arena gave each player on the winning team 2 VIP tickets to see http://www.o2arena.cz/o2arenaen/eventDe ... d=19108611" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
