If you’re anything like me, your body clock is probably thrown off this morning.
I was awake shortly after 5 a.m., which is a good 60-90 minutes before I usually get up.
We had some strange game times on the California road trip, with a 10 p.m. ET start time on Thursday followed by 4 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET puck drops on the weekend.
Add in the clocks moving back an hour with the end of daylight saving time in Ontario and maybe you’re also feeling like your schedule is out of its normal rhythm.
So, this is probably a good time to tell you that we’re planning on turning back the clock again when we host the Utah Mammoth at Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday night.
But the good news is this shouldn’t alter your sleep pattern in any fashion.
This weekend, we’re bringing back a handful of notable alumni, as we celebrate the years ending in the number ‘seven’ that have seemed to bring the Senators good fortune. The 1997 team was the first to qualify for the playoffs, while the 2007 and 2017 squads made deep post-season runs that endeared them to the fanbase and city.
We’ll have some members from all three of those teams around this weekend and highlighted by a handful of players who haven’t been back to Ottawa in quite a while.
We are very excited to welcome back Mike Fisher, who was one of the most popular players on those early 2000s Sens squads. This will be the first time Mike is officially back in at the Canadian Tire Centre after his retirement and he’ll be part of the ceremonial puck drop ahead of the game against Utah.
Dean McAmmond and Peter Schaefer – two of Mike’s teammates from the 2007 Stanley Cup finalist team – will also be in attendance this weekend. Same with Wade Redden, who played on both the 1997 and 2007 teams.
A lot of our alumni are headed back to the area for the weekend so they can participate in a Battle of Ontario alumni game in Peterborough on Friday night. Craig Anderson will be our goalie for that alumni game and I believe this is the first time he’s strapped on the pads since his retirement. Craig has also agreed to wear a mic for us while he’s playing net in this game, so we should get some pretty fun content out of this.
Over the past couple of years we’ve been fortunate to have a lot of fan favourites return to the Canadian Tire Centre. We’ve welcomed back the Pizza Line, Andrew Hammond and Kyle Turris. Plus, we had Ray Emery’s family help us kick off the season by ringing our ceremonial bell prior to the home opener last month.
Are there any other alumni you’d like to see us welcome back at Canadian Tire Centre?
Drop us an email to [email protected].
Trivia time:
Speaking of Mike Fisher, he scored 167 goals with the Senators before adding another 111 with the Nashville Predators.
Can you name the four other players who scored at least 100 goals for Ottawa and 100 goals for another NHL franchise?
Answer at the bottom of this column.
Next Absolute Non-Sens podcast guest: Nikolas Matinpalo
The Absolute Non-Sens podcast rolls on with an episode featuring Nikolas Matinpalo later this week. He is another one of those players who is similar to our last guest on the pod, Fabian Zetterlund. Nik has played more than 100 NHL games over the past couple of seasons, but most of our fans don’t know too much about his personal side.
Nik is rarely at the centre of a large scrum or receiving a lot of media attention, so this podcast chat was a really great opportunity to get to know him away from the rink. Among the topics we broached with him:
- He tells us about his mandatory training with the Finnish military.
- He chats about being one of the few NHL players who knows how to play the piano.
- And he reveals which Cranberries song he cranks on his drive into Canadian Tire Centre on a game night.
Speaking of the podcast, we are also going to get Craig Anderson to pop by the studio when he’s in town this weekend.
Do you have any specific questions you’d like to see him answer?
Shoot us a note to [email protected] and we’ll try and pick a couple of them to ask.
Correct answer to our Batherson hat trick question
Last week in this space, we asked our readers to try and guess how many hats were thrown on the ice when Drake Batherson scored his hat trick against the New York Rangers.
We had hundreds of submissions with guesses ranging from 37 hats thrown on the ice to 1,753 – a wild overestimation from a reader named Dave.
In the end, we must tip our cap to Kathie from North Augusta, who correctly guessed that 178 hats were tossed onto the ice that night. (In case you’re wondering, the breakdown was 150 of the free Sens rope hats that were handed out and 28 random ones).
We’ve reached out to Kathie with a prize offer and we’d like to thank everybody who submitted an entry.
Media roundup: Looking back at some interesting and fun Senators stories you might have missed over the past seven days.
We want to fill Canadian Tire Centre with Sens fans when we host big rivalry games and to that end, we’ve launched the Verified Sens Army program. And as Callum Fraser at Postmedia reports, we’ve got a few thousand fans who have already signed up.
Tim Stützle set a franchise record for most points by a Sens player in October. Alex Adams from Coming In Hot explains why Stützle’s fast start is sustainable over a full season.
Speaking of Coming In Hot, Michael Andlauer joined Wally and Graeme Nichols to chat about a wide variety of topics last week. (And I won’t confirm or deny if I was responsible for their technical issues partway through the live broadcast).
And apparently, they’ll hand out awards to just about anybody these days. Our Andrew Wilimek has that story.
Trivia answer: Other than Mike Fisher, the following four players also scored 100 goals with Ottawa and another NHL franchise: Alexei Yashin (218 with Ottawa; 119 with NYI), Mark Stone (123 with Ottawa; 145 with Vegas), Bobby Ryan (107 with Ottawa; 147 with Anaheim) and Marian Hossa (188 with Ottawa, 186 with Chicago and 108 with Atlanta).
