Let’s start this week’s column with a public service announcement for Senators fans.
The actual puck drop time for Monday’s game against the New York Rangers will be 7:51 p.m. ET. The official schedule will say it’s a 7:30 p.m. ET start, but there are a couple of reasons why tonight’s game is pushed back slightly.
For starters, it’s an Amazon Prime game – nationally televised across Canada – which means they work in extra time for pre-game features and panel discussions. That usually puts the start time at 7:45 p.m. ET for these games, but tonight the Rangers are honouring Mika Zibanejad since it will be his 1,000th career game in the NHL.
As a result, the actual puck drop time this evening will be 7:51 p.m. ET. This will buy you an extra 20 minutes to wrap up your dinner, finish some work, put your toddler to sleep – or whatever it is that needs your attention prior to puck drop.
If you aren’t pressed for time, the Amazon Prime pre-game show is absolutely worth watching. They always have in-depth features and unique elements that you only find on a Monday night broadcast. When we were in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, they conducted this terrific interview with Warren Foegele during the pre-game warmup.
The initial plan for tonight is for Andi Petrillo to conduct an extended interview with Thomas Chabot, as part of her ‘Coffee With Andi’ series. And then Andi will conduct a bench interview with Shane Pinto when we hit the ice at Madison Square Garden for warm up.
It’s a lot of Senators-related content for a national show, so I highly suggest tuning in if you’ve got the time.
And it once again brings me to this question: Would you like to see NHL teams promote the actual puck drop time on their tickets and schedule – or are you okay with the current system that promotes the start of the television broadcast?
In baseball, for example, the Toronto Blue Jays always put the time of the first pitch on their schedule and tickets. So a home game at Rogers Centre will say 7:07 p.m. on it – rather than 7:00 p.m.
In the hockey world, we never push the actual puck drop time. If we did, most of our Senators’ games would be promoted as 7:08 p.m. start times.
Have a strong opinion on this topic? Send us an email to [email protected].
And don’t say you don’t have enough time to write in, because you’ve got an extra 20 minutes to play with tonight.
Trivia time: As mentioned, Mika Zibanejad will play his 1,000th career NHL game on Monday night against the Ottawa Senators – a cool twist considering he was a first-round pick of the Senators back in 2011.
This week’s trivia question: Can you name the five other players drafted in the first round by the Ottawa Senators to also reach the 1000-game plateau in the NHL?
Answer at the bottom of this column.
Our initial ‘Drop The Puck’ event
Last Wednesday’s game at Washington was certainly the most disappointing result of the week for our team. A 4-1 loss to the Capitals was the only blemish on our record over the past 10 days.
But while our team dropped that decision at Capital One Arena, we did score a win back at Canadian Tire Centre on the same night. We hosted our first ‘Drop The Puck’ event, aimed at teaching the basics of hockey to people who have never been exposed to the sport. One of our main objectives here was to connect with new Canadians who wanted to learn more about the sport that is woven into the fabric of our country.
As the participants entered the Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday, we asked them to place a sticker on a world map to indicate their home country. It was really cool to see the representation from all over the globe, as people placed stickers on Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Jordan, Senegal, Sudan and Ukraine.
After they ate a Canadian-inspired dinner – complete with a poutine station – we brought them into the arena bowl at Canadian Tire Centre. I spoke about my own journey in the sport, which started with my parents immigrating from Tanzania to Canada when my mom was pregnant with me.
Chris Phillips popped by and answered questions from the audience.
We then guided them through an hour-long conversation about the history of the game and the basics of the sport. We had players on the ice to demonstrate offside, icing and penalties. (It was particularly fun watching our on-ice volunteers show an example of a spearing penalty).
And just before we all watched the game against the Capitals on our Bell HD screen at centre ice, we surprised the participants with tickets to an upcoming Senators game and gift cards to our Sens store.
They were absolutely thrilled with this and one person yelled out, “You just made me a Senators fan!”
We received a lot of positive feedback from the participants the next day and all of the credit belongs to my colleagues Matthew Franczyk and Alyssa Almstedt, who planned the entire evening.
We left the night determined to replicate this event in the future. Growing the game and speaking to new audiences is something we need to be better at with our sport.
So if you have any ideas for how we can execute a similar event in the future, please send us an email to [email protected]
