By WILLIAM HOUSTON

Friday, March 4, 2005 Updated at 8:10 AM EST

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Despite the cancellation of the National Hockey League season, the tradition of hockey in April and May could be kept alive by two Canadian tournaments featuring world-class players.The International Management Group is attempting to organize a tournament that would involve NHL players and be carried live on the CBC.

As well, the new World Hockey Association has a tournament scheduled to run from May 19 to June 3. WHA president and chief executive officer Ricky Smith said yesterday that 87 NHL players have agreed to participate.

Heading the list, he said, is Martin St. Louis, the Tampa Bay Lightning star who won the NHL scoring championship in 2003-04 and was voted the leagues most valuable player.

"I'm looking at an e-mail from [St. Louis's agent]," Smith said. "And he says Martin wants to play."

Among those who have confirmed, he said, are NHLers Chris Chelios, Sean Burke, Mike Keane, Mark Recchi, Robert Esche and Andrew Raycroft.

"It goes on and on and on," Smith said. "It's a long list. People are taking this extremely seriously."

Smith said the WHA tournament will be held at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ricoh Centre in Toronto and at a West Coast arena that he would not identify. He said a television network has expressed interest in carrying the games.The IMG tournament would be played in early April before the players joined training camps for the world hockey championship.

"It's been an ongoing process and there has been significant interest from the television side," Kevin Albrecht, the executive director of IMG Canada, said yesterday.

The CBC has a large amount of air time available in April because of the cancellation of the NHL playoffs.

Albrecht says the IMG tournament, consisting of six to eight games, would be played in non-NHL arenas in Canadian cities. Canadian all-stars would play world all-stars.

IMG will go ahead with its plans to organize its tournament, Albrecht said, if corporate sponsors can be lined up.

"Right now, were doing the due diligence on the corporate side and if that comes across as positive we would take the next step," he said.

The next step would be setting up arena dates. Potential venues would include Halifax, Quebec City, Ottawa, Hamilton and London, Ont., Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Victoria and Vancouver.

"In Ottawa, there's the Civic Centre," Albrecht said. "The new rink in London seats 9,200. The Winnipeg arena has a 15,000 capacity. Saskatoon holds 11,300.

"There's a brand new rink in Victoria and a refurbished rink at the PNE in Vancouver. There are lots of options involving great new facilities."

Albrecht said the players would be not paid for their participation. Any profit from the venture would be donated to a charity, perhaps to assist minor hockey.

The WHA tournament would consist of six teams selected by captains chosen by the organizers. The teams would wear sweaters from the teams in the old WHA, which folded in 1979. It would be a winner-take-all format with a purse of $2-million (U.S.). Each player would receive an appearance fee of $20,000.

Smith said the WHA is on target to begin regular-season play in October.

Before Christmas, IMG Canada organized a schedule of games in Europe featuring locked out NHL players. The games, sponsored by Molson, were shown on pay-per-view television, carried in sports bars and repeated a few weeks later on TSN. Albrecht said the tour was a financial success.