Looking for a way to expand their fan base, the Buffalo Sabres thought small and moved their game against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday to Rochester, a minor league city with an 11,000-seat arena. It was the first time the NHL visited Rochester and the game sold out.

The Edmonton Oilers thought much bigger. They will move Saturday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens outdoors to a 56,000-seat football stadium and added a warm-up exhibition featuring alumni from both teams, which happen to include some of the game’s greatest players ever.

It will be the NHL’s first outdoor game. The Oilers received more than 700,000 ticket requests.

Two history-making ideas at opposite ends of the spectrum, both aimed at spreading the word about the NHL at a time when the league so desperately needs positive publicity.

Judging by attendance only, it would seem that both of these events should go down as extraordinary successes.

And that’s looking only at the small picture.

From the Sabres’ perspective, there didn’t seem to be much to lose. They drew only 12,633 for a game against the Devils on Oct. 25 of last season. So how could it hurt to move this game to a smaller arena in the city of their American Hockey League affiliate? The majority of the tickets were sold in a four-pack, which included a ticket to a Sabres’ preseason game in Rochester, a ticket to the game against the Devils, and tickets to any two Sabres’ games in Buffalo.

So fans that normally don’t have access to the NHL would get to see four games. Hopefully, they’ll notice the difference between the NHL and the AHL and want to see more.

Sabres’ owner Tom Golisano is talking about doing it again next season – if there is a next season – perhaps twice.

“I think it’s very positive,” Golisano said. “We have an excellent example in our world here with the Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Bills used to hold their training camp, which is an event, in the southwestern corner of the state without a lot of population.

A few years ago, they moved it to a local (Rochester) college.

“From what I’ve heard, as many as one third of the fans in the seats in Buffalo, the Bills’ fans, are from Rochester. So, it obviously worked for them and we’re trying to learn from that.”

In Edmonton, the Oilers already have a strong, loyal fan base, but its still about appealing to as many fans as possible.

The idea started in Michigan, where the University of Michigan played Michigan State in an outdoor game in East Lansing two years ago.

For most of us in this area, the idea of playing hockey outside – in freezing cold – sounds silly, but children in Canada do it every day.

“From the time when you’re a kid in Canada – wherever you live in North America where snow flies and you can make a rink, or you go for Christmas and your dad takes you out and he turns you loose and you’re gliding on this thing, there’s some magic in that,” said Allan Watt, the Oilers’ vice president of marketing and communications.

“The thought of seeing multi-millionaire hockey players skating around outside playing for real points has captured something.”

There are risks involved. What if it snows? What if it rains? What if the temperature is 20-below? The organizers charted the weather patterns in Edmonton in late November over the past 50 years, which indicated that the temperature is usually between 20 and 40 degrees, and that it rarely rains. Snow is another story, but so far the forecasts look good.

Wayne Gretzky and his fellow alumni have vowed to play the exhibition no matter what the weather. The regular game will be moved inside on Sunday if the weather makes it unsafe to play outside Saturday.

There would be no magic in that.

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(c) 2003, The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)

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AP-NY-11-17-03 0621EST