I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of travel-related adventures with the Senators over the years.
Multiple trips to Sweden for overseas games.
Attending the Stanley Cup Final in Anaheim in 2007.
Watching the team have an outdoor skate at Central Park in 2010.
Visits to childhood homes of players like Tim Stützle and Shane Pinto.
At some point, I want to write a book when my career wraps up because I’ve had so many fun escapades around this franchise.
But one excursion that won’t make its way into a potential book was our whirlwind visit to St. Louis last week.
That was a long way to travel for a one-off pre-season game and we probably spent as much time in the air as we did on the ground in St. Louis. I wish I had some fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes to share, but the reality is I think we used ‘Men In Black’ mind erasers when we landed back in Ottawa.
The good news is with the pre-season schedule concluded, we can all focus our attention on the regular season.
And we have some exciting announcements to share about our coverage this season on our Senators website and platforms.
But first, some trivia.
Trivia time: With the Senators opening the 2025-26 campaign on Thursday in Tampa, I thought it would be fun to ask this question: Which player holds the record for the fastest goal to start a season for the Senators? Hint: It’s not Kyle Turris, who scored 30 seconds into the 2015-16 season-opener at Buffalo. That’s right, somebody has scored a goal faster than that to kick off a season for the Senators.
(Answer at the bottom of this column)
Introducing our ‘Absolute Non-Sens’ podcast:
I know what you’re thinking: The hockey world needs another podcast like we need another photo radar camera on the roads in Ottawa.
But I promise you, this one is going to be different.
Welcome to Absolute Non-Sens, the podcast where we pepper our players, coaches and alumni with questions that have absolutely have nothing to do with hockey.
Our debut episode will drop this week, featuring Tim Stützle in our brand-new podcast studio inside Canadian Tire Centre. We ask Tim hard-hitting questions like:
When you dream, is it in German or English?
Do you take the exit for Terry Fox Drive or Palladium when you’re driving to Canadian Tire Centre?
Did you really break a teacher’s glasses playing baseball when you were a kid?
The podcast is co-hosted by myself and our Sens 360 reporter Jackson Starr. For those who don’t know, Jackson was a former student of mine a couple of years ago in my sports journalism class at Carleton University. I’m not sure if a professor and a former student have ever teamed up launch a podcast, but we’ll just go ahead and assume we’re the first ones to do this in the NHL sphere.
We’re really excited to share a different side of our players with you. I’m a firm believer that if you get to know athletes, coaches and executives on a personal level, it creates a closer bond and attachment to the fan base.
I think Sens fans will love this format and the podcast will be available in video form on our YouTube channel and in audio form, wherever you find your podcasts.
Media roundup: Looking back at some interesting and fun Senators stories you might have missed over the past seven days.
- As part of our efforts to enhance our coverage, we’ve added Andrew Wilimek as a new writer to our Senators website. As a proud Carleton guy, I was willing to overlook the fact that Andrew is a U Ottawa graduate and former editor of The Fulcrum. I hope you can find it in your heart to do the same thing. Andrew will be writing features, game stories and other things for us this season. Take a peek at his work here, as he delves into Jordan Spence’s unique hockey upbringing.
- Want a solid, unbiased look at our team and playoff chances this season? The Athletic always does an excellent job with their team previews each fall, with Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman leading the charge. Check out their 2025-26 preview of the Senators. (And yes, I had to double-check the spelling of Luszczyszyn).
- The gang at The Score decided to run a simulation of the 2025-26 season using EA Sports NHL ‘26. The result? The Senators win the Stanley Cup, thanks to a David Perron double-OT winner against the Oilers in Game 7. Dylan Cozens is your Conn Smythe Trophy winner and Linus Ullmark stops 48 shots in the Stanley Cup clincher. For the record, I trust this type of analysis more than anything Dom and Shayna put together.
- Sportsnet.ca columnist Alex Adams – a certified jinx artist – had a chance to go one-on-one with Steve Staios while we were in Quebec City last week. It was a good, wide-ranging conversation with the general manager that Sens fans should read.
- Some tweaks to TSN’s coverage of Senators games this season, which will include former head coach Paul MacLean as part of a rotating mix of panelists. Graeme Nichols has all the details in The Hockey News.
The ongoing TSN blackout issue:
I’m bracing for more feedback and criticism for Thursday’s regular season opener, which will air on TSN 5 in our viewing region. I tackled this issue in last week’s column. The best advice is that if you can watch the game using cellular data – and then mirroring your phone to your TV – that seems to be the only workaround solution for now.
I received lots of interesting feedback on social media and via email last week about this persistent blackout issue on TSN. (Reminder, you can email me with any queries or ideas: [email protected] )
One reader suggested that I should elevate our collective concern to the CRTC, so that’s exactly what I did last week.
And to my surprise, they responded to my email right away – but they informed me that I had contacted the wrong regulatory body. Their response read:
The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) is Canada’s national and independent organization dedicated to resolving customer complaints about telecommunications and television services, fairly and free of charge.
* We can only accept complaints regarding telecommunications service providers like Bell Canada, TELUS, Rogers and others.*
TSN is not a telecommunications provider, it is considered Digital media broadcast undertakings (DMBU), and the CCTS cannot accept complaint for DMBUs unless the digital services are part of the customer's agreement or contract with their service provider.
Okay, swing and a miss.
But they did point me in the direction of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which might be the place for us to get the ball rolling here. I will be putting together a similar email for them this week.
We’re going to eventually hunt down a solution to this issue, even if it requires me cutting through all the government red tape in Ottawa. And please email me if you have any out-of-the-box solutions that we’re not thinking about.
Random thoughts:
Newly acquired Kurtis MacDermid’s dad Paul had a solid NHL career that included 690 games with a handful of teams. Paul’s final season was in 1994-95 with the Quebec Nordiques, where his assistant coach was Jacques Martin. And when Kurtis makes his first regular season trip with the Senators this week to Florida, Martin will be along for the ride, as he’s still a regular consultant on our coaching staff.
Tampa and Ottawa were expansion cousins in 1992-93, but they’ve never opened a regular season against each other – until Thursday night at Benchmark International Arena. The Lightning will be Ottawa’s 19th different opponent they’ve faced to start a regular season. In case you’re wondering, the most common opening opponent is Toronto, who the Sens have faced eight times to start a season. (Ottawa sports a 7-1-0 record in those games against their provincial rivals).
Trivia answer: Brady Tkachuk scored just 25 seconds into the 2019-20 season opener at Toronto – which is the fastest goal to start any season in Ottawa franchise history.
