In late October the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League were locked in a scoreless tie with the New York Islanders when, suddenly, Sabres right wing Ales Kotalik scored on a booming shot from the top of the left face-off circle, one-timing a pass from Jaroslav Spacek past Islander goalie Rick DiPietro.
The first face-to-face negotiations between the government and the left-wing rebels in a decade started last October in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, and transferred to Cuba a month later.