A quarter of the tickets for the Boston Bruins' game against the Belfast Giants at the Odyssey Arena have already been sold, in what will be the first ever performance of the National Hockey League stars outside of North America.
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The Boston Bruins, who are one of the most famous NHL hockey teams, will play a special Belfast Giants Select team on 2 October, as part of the 2010 Compuware NHL Premiere™ Challenge.
The Belfast Giants Selects will comprise of an All-Star selection of the best of the UK Elite League players.
Northern Ireland's hottest ice hockey tickets of the decade went on sale this week.
The game is expected to attract over 4,500 visitors and generate over £800,000 into the city's economy, as ice hockey fans across the UK and America travel to witness the Bruins' inaugural European game.
The game will also mark the ten year anniversary of the Odyssey since it opened in 2000 and began hosting the Belfast Giants.
Belfast Giants General Manager, Todd Kelman, was in Boston last week to agree the deal with the Bruins.
"This is a big deal, this is like Manchester United or Chelsea to put it in football terms; this is one of the biggest franchises in the world; the best, most well-known franchises in the world," he told UTV.
"The Boston Bruins are one of the top four teams in the National Hockey League. These guys are the super stars. It isn't their second team or their training team coming across; this is the real deal coming across to play us before they begin their season so it is massive for the Giants. It's massive for our entire league. We made it a league event and it is massive for Belfast."
Bruins forward Shawn Thornton, who recently signed with the Bruins for a further two years, said that the game in Northern Ireland was one of the reasons he wanted to re-sign.
"It'll be awesome ... It'll be unbelievable," he told the Boston Herald. "My mom is from Belfast. I'm excited about this. I've been talking about it since we first heard about it. I've never been over there. ... I know the (Bruins' Czech players) are really excited about Prague, but I'm more excited about Belfast."
The game is sponsored by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Belfast City Council.
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