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Montreal Canadiens player Blake Geoffrion was born and raised in Tennessee, and his former Nashville Predators team- mate Jonathon Blum was born and raised in California. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Wild signed Jason Zucker, who grew up playing hockey in Las Vegas. Signs of hockey's growth are visible all over the country. A Junior team in Lincoln, Nebraska draws an average of 4,200 fans per game. The United States Hockey League has drawn more than one million fans for 12 consecutive seasons. Louis area youth hockey, where former NHL players Jeff Brown, Keith Tkachuk and Al MacInnis are coaching, is on the verge of pro- ducing a boatload of talented players. When Tom Lockhart launched the American Hockey Association of the United States (now called USA Hockey) in 1937, he ran it out of his New York City apartment. The buzz in the hockey world is that St. All of the organization's registration cards fit neatly in a shoebox. Today's shoebox needs to be large enough to accommodate the 500,000 registered play- ers, 58,000 registered coaches and 25,000 registered officials. When Mike Eruzione fired a wrist shot past Soviet goaltender Vladimir Myshkin on Lake Placid ice in 1980, he probably began the project to expand hockey's footprint in the United States. His goal inspired play- ers Mike Modano, Brian Leetch and others who matured into American hockey's greatest generation. With those players helping lead the like Jeremy Roenick, Tony Amonte, way, the NHL expanded into non-tradi- tional markets like Tampa, south Florida, Raleigh, Dallas, San Jose, Arizona, Anaheim, Columbus and Nashville. In my lifetime, the NHL has expanded from six to 30 teams. In all of those American cities, new arenas went In my lifetime, the NHL has expanded from six to 30 teams. USA Hockey 75TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE PROGRAM 17