Our dream scenario unfolded on Saturday night at Canadian Tire Centre.
We’ve often joked inside the office walls that it would be amazing to see a Sens player score a hat trick on the same night we held a hat giveaway promotion for our fans.
It’s happened numerous times for other teams around the NHL, most famously when Jonathan Toews scored a hat trick on a night when Chicago handed out 10,000 hard construction hats to fans at United Center back in 2009. (In hindsight, it seemed needlessly dangerous for the fans sitting in the first few rows).
Thankfully on Saturday, we were giving away some soft ballcaps to mark our Rinkside Rodeo night at Canadian Tire Centre. The first 7,000 fans walking into the building received a Senators rope hat.
After Drake Batherson clinched his hat trick with just 12 seconds remaining in regulation time, the fans littered the ice with hats.
On Monday morning, we headed down to collect the hats from our building operations team to get a handle on how many were tossed onto the ice on Saturday.
As you would expect, the vast majority of the hats were the free ones we handed out at the door. But there were also some regular ballcaps mixed in.
I found an Atlanta Braves hat, multiple Blue Jays caps, a ballcap from a local excavation company and there was a vintage Senators hat autographed by a player – but we couldn’t make out who signed it. (It was from a No. 9 – but it definitely wasn’t Josh Norris, Bobby Ryab or Milan Michalek).
As a contest for our readers this week, we thought it would be fun to ask you to guess how many hats do you think we collected on Saturday night? Send your answers to [email protected] and we’ll reach out with a little prize for the person who comes the closest.
And for those wondering, we collected a total of 37 Brady Tkachuk jerseys that were tossed onto the ice at various points during our Wednesday game against the Florida Panthers. I reached out to the Panthers on the weekend to give them the total number of jerseys we collected, as Brady had indicated he wanted to make a donation to BGC Ottawa around those jerseys.
For the record, a lot of those jerseys were in damaged or unusable condition, so we’re not going to physically pass them along to BGC Ottawa.
Trivia time:
Drake Batherson has scored all three of his career hat tricks at Canadian Tire Centre.
Can you name the only other two players in franchise history who have recorded three hat tricks on home ice for the Senators?
Answer at the bottom of this column.
More information and assistance for customers experiencing blackout issues with our TSN 5 regional broadcasts
The first four games of our upcoming road trip will be broadcast on TSN 5.
We anticipate receiving more feedback about the blackout issue that is plaguing some of our fans within our viewing region. To that end, TSN has been very open and communicative with us about trying to find a solution.
They are urging our fans who are having issues to check out their ‘Blackout Troubleshooting Guide’ on their official website. When you click on that link, you’ll have the option to:
- Use their ‘Blackout Checker Tool’ to determine if you’re experiencing a blackout incorrectly. (You will need to provide your postal code).
- Determine if your IP address is appearing correctly
- Follow a handful of troubleshooting steps
We are adamant that we’re going to be persistent on this issue to ensure every single one of our viewers can access our games on TSN 5.
As always, if you’re not getting the results you want, we encourage you to continue reaching out to us at [email protected].
Media roundup: Looking back at some interesting and fun Senators stories you might have missed over the past seven days.
After he and his staff signed contract extensions on Monday, Travis Green joined AJ & Kenny on The Drive.
William Eklund is trying to keep his spirits high after suffering an ankle injury in the home opener. William spoke to the media for the first time since the injury last week and our Andrew Wilimek was part of the conversation.
The gang at Coming In Hot have a new website, which will feature regular written contributions from Graeme Nichols and Alex Adams. Graeme led things off with his 1-on-1 conversation with Steve Staios.
Wednesday’s win over the Florida Panthers was certainly one of the most memorable regular season games ever held at Canadian Tire Centre. There were lots of great accounts of what unfolded that night. Julian McKenzie captured the spirit on and off the ice with this piece for The Athletic.
Meanwhile, Ryan Dixon rolled into Ottawa for Sportsnet.ca and did an excellent job recapping the night from an outsider’s perspective.
Trivia answer: Other than Batherson, the other two players with three hat tricks on home ice for the Senators: Marian Hossa & Dany Heatley.
