Question: How many regular NHL seasons had there been before the 1999-2000 hockey season? Passage 1:Five youth team players were given professional contracts for the 2015–16 season: defender Lewis Bergin, midfielders Chekaine Steele, Billy Reeves and Omar Haughton, and striker Jonathon Kapend. Manager Rob Page signed a new two-year contract in May 2015. However he needed to avoid a poor start to the season as chairman Norman Smurthwaite warned he was prepared to make "ruthless decisions" if the club were struggling by September. The first signings of the season were powerful former loanee defender Remie Streete from Newcastle United, and former Norwich City youth player Sam Kelly. Midfielder Sam Foley also joined the "Valiants" on a two-year contract, choosing to leave relegated Yeovil Town just after picking up Yeovil's Player of the Year award. Page further strengthened the defence and midfield by signing Walsall right-back Ben Purkiss and Crewe Alexandra defensive midfielder Anthony Grant. Page needed to find a cost effective forward with the club both short on strikers following the departure of Tom Pope and Ben Williamson and with little funds available due to a large cut to the wage bill, and so brought in young Watford striker Uche Ikpeazu on loan, having been impressed by Ikpeazu's performances for Crewe last season. Another former Crewe favourite, A-Jay Leitch-Smith, was also signed after impressing Page during pre-season. The eighth and final summer signing was Ryan Inniss, who was confirmed as joining on a season long loan from Crystal Palace after being linked with a return to Vale Park for many weeks. On 6 August, Vale signed goalkeeper Jak Alnwick on a short-term deal; he was signed to compete with Sam Johnson for a first team place as Chris Neal was out injured at the start of the season.
 Passage 2:Following the postwar crime comics vogue spearheaded by publisher Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay, which by 1948 was selling over a million copies a month, came romance comics, which by 1949 outsold all other genres, and horror comics. The same month in which Adventures into the Unknown premiered, the comic-book company EC, which would become the most prominent horror-comics publisher of the 1950s, published its first horror story, "Zombie Terror", by the then relatively unknown writer and artist Johnny Craig, in the superhero comic Moon Girl #5. Almost simultaneously,Trans-World Publications issued its one-and-only comic, the one-shot Mysterious Traveler Comics #1 (November 1948), based on the Mutual Broadcasting Network's radio show of that name and including amid its crime and science-fiction stories a reprint of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptation "The Tell Tale Heart", reprinted from Charlton Comics' Yellowjacket Comics #6. Street and Smith also published two issues of "Ghost Breakers" in late 1948. (ibid GCDB)
 Passage 3:Before the 1999–2000 NHL season Torchetti was hired as an assistant coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning under Steve Ludzik. In 2002 Torchetti was hired as head coach of the San Antonio Rampage. Due to his many coaching stints in the city, "Torch" has kept close ties to San Antonio. After 65 games he was promoted to assistant coach with the parent club, the Florida Panthers. In 2004, he served 27 games as interim head coach, replacing Rick Dudley. He finished with a 10–12–4–1 record before being replaced by Jacques Martin. During the 2005–06 NHL season, Torchetti was hired by Dave Taylor as interim head coach of the Los Angeles Kings. With a chance to clinch a playoff spot, he had a 5–7 record in the team's final 12 games and was not retained by the Kings, instead being replaced by Marc Crawford.

Output: 3