FOXBORO - The Patriots have four trips to the West Coast scheduled for next year, which is daunting enough for any team from the East.

But according to a report in a Canadian newspaper, there's a chance that the Patriots may also be considered for a "home" game against Denver in Edmonton, Alberta, during the 2008 regular season.

Edmonton Sun columnist Graham Hicks reported Sunday that Edmonton is among several Canadian cities seeking to play host to an NFL regular-season game as part of the league's new international series of games, which begins next month with the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins playing in London's Wembley Stadium.

Citing the fact that Broncos' owner Pat Bowlen is from Edmonton and has maintained close ties with the city, and a report from an Edmonton radio station that said a private jet belonging to Patriots' owner Robert Kraft was recently parked at the city's airport, the Sun columnist drew the conclusion that a Patriots-Broncos game on the weekend of the Canadian Thanksgiving (which will fall on Monday, Oct. 13 in 2008) might be in the works.

That could be conclusion jumping of Olympic proportions, although Patriots' spokesman Stacey James confirmed Tuesday evening that members of the Kraft family were recently in Edmonton. James did not specify a reason for the visit. But there are reasons why the Patriots should be considered highly likely to be included in the NFL's international series, and before too long.

For one, the Patriots got the short end of the stick from the NFL this past spring when the league's owners voted to sanction one regular-season game overseas for the 2007 season, and as a result, pulled the plug on plans to send the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks to China in early August for a preseason game.

The "China Bowl" game, announced with much fanfare last September, was to have been a lead-in event to the year-long buildup for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. However, after the owners voted to begin the international series of regular-season games this season, league officials believed they couldn't marshal the resources to successfully promote two games overseas, including one in a non-English-speaking nation.

There were also concerns that the facilities available to the Patriots and Seahawks would not be up to NFL standards. It was already certain that Beijing's new Olympic Stadium would not have been completed in time for the game, so it was scheduled for Worker's Stadium, a 60,000-seat bowl being renovated for the Olympic soccer competition.

The game was canceled early in April.

With the Patriots having reasserted themselves as one of the league's marquee teams, and in deference to the disappointment suffered by the Kraft organization in losing the international exposure of a game in China, it's very likely that the league would be looking to arrange a "makeup call" for one of its most powerful owners.

But would the league tack another long trip onto a killer schedule that already has trips on the books to Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego as well as the annual trip to Miami? It's apparently a strong possibility, and a game in Canada would be likely to be seen by the Patriots as preferable to the alternative of being sent on a longer haul overseas.

According to the Sun article, Edmonton Eskimos' communications director Dave Jamieson confirmed that his team has bid to play host to an International Series game at 60,081-seat Commonwealth Stadium, built in 1978 and the only major stadium in Canada that still has a natural grass surface. "But so have several other CFL teams," said Jamieson.

The only other CFL facilities that match what the NFL would prefer for seating capacity and amenities are the Rogers Centre in Toronto and B.C. Place in Vancouver. The Patriots played a preseason game in Montreal's Olympic Stadium in 1990, but the CFL's Alouettes do not use it as their home base.

The Edmonton columnist also suggested that bids by Vancouver and Toronto may be met by resistance from other NFL owners, as they are too close to cities (Seattle and Buffalo) with existing NFL franchises. It's unlikely that such a game would be the extra regular-season game proposed for the future by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The NFL's schedule rotation is locked in through 2009.

However, there are proposals afoot that would reduce the preseason schedule to three games and add the extra regular-season game for international exposure, and to prevent teams from losing the revenue of one home game.

Next year's schedule will be officially announced in April.

Team transactions

The Patriots announced Tuesday that they had signed cornerback Antwain Spann to their practice squad, filling the spot of released cornerback Gemara Williams. They also placed tight end Jason Rader on the practice squad injured reserve list.

Spann, 24, was signed last year off the practice squad on three occasions, seeing action in eight regular-season games. The Louisiana-Lafayette product had been released on the opening day of this year's training camp.