ottawasportsblog

For those of you searching for video of the Spezza OT winner against the Canadiens, you can find it here.

As the perfect tonic to the Gades futility, we have the Sens performance tonight.

8-0.

Beautiful.

Ahhhhh....

With today's 43-23 loss to the Alouettes, the Gades small mathematical playoff hopes have been officially quashed, and the off season circus is already beginnning, even with a game to go. Joe Paopao, and his 2-play playbook are rightfully on the way out of town, and hopefully with him we have seen the last of his many passes to the far sideline. However, as Paopao heads out the door, that door is opened for the circus to come marching in. Already, John Jenkins, one of the few remaining proponents of the Run and Shoot offence is rumoured to be his replacement. This has at least three obvious problems:

1. The Gades likely lose Greg Marshall, the man who should be the next head coach
2. The Gades don't have the O-line to pull off the Run and Shoot
3. The Gades would be wasting one of the league's best RB

But I'll have a whole off-season to rant about this. For now, today's loss can be summed up in one play. On third and long, late in the game, with the Renegades needing a big gain to keep a drive, and any hope of a comeback, going, Jason Armstead caught a pass about 3 yards short of the 1st down marker. He ran 2 yards before dropping down and sliding short of the first down. I don't know whether it was fear of the oncoming hit, or a lack of awareness that caused him to drop down short. Either is unacceptable, and is a perfect example of why the Renegades are out of the playoffs for yet another year.

So that's why he kept trying it.

Two years of turning the puck over trying the same move were redeemed last night when it actually worked and Jason Spezza made another beautiful move around Jose Theodore before roofing a backhand for the OT winner. That was the nicest goal I've seen in person, for sure, and one of the nicest I can remember, period. It was a fitting cap to an exciting game.

It was a game that never would have made it to OT without another highlight-reel play, an absolute robbery of a save by Theodore on Chris Neil late in the third. Theodore dove across to take away the wide open net and make the save.

At the other end, Ray Emery had a solid game, himself. Although he's only had two appearances so far, I'm feeling more comfortable that he could handle starting duties, at least in the regular season, when Hasek inevitably gets hurt sometime this season.

The atmoshere at the Corel Centre was charged last night. There was a healthy contingent of Habs fans out (with the Habs resurgence, the imfamously front-running fan base is re-emerging fom hibernation) and not only did Habs goals get a big response, but I think I even heard some Emery taunting at one point. More than once, Go Habs Go chants also had to be drowned out with Go Sens Go chants. It makes for a fun atmosphere, especially when the game on the ice is such an exciting one too.

Updated blogroll: I've added a couple of new links to the blogroll. Sens Underground is a new podcast all about the Sens. You can subscribe to their feed through their website, or though iTunes.

I've also added a link to Buzz's (of TEAM1200 fame ) blog. Who knows how long it will last though, as he's yet to post again since his opening post. Then again, who am I to criticize posting frequency? "Those in glass houses...", right?

That was possibly the most frustrating game I've watched in my time as a Gades fan, which is really saying something considering some of the real stinkers the team has put up over the last couple of years. Why must they shit their pants every time they need a win? A team with a playoff spot on the lie against a team already auditioning for next year starting a QB signed 3 weeks ago and starting his first game. The defence forced 5 turnovers in the first half and the offence can't take a lead to the half? Not free of guilt, the defence made its share of massive mistakes too. In the second half, as things continued to get worse, I had to flip to the Sens game for long periods to turn away from the train wreck.

I won't even get started on Tay Cody's late hit on Pat Woodcock.

One positive I can take out of this game is that I'm not going to feel as guilty about missing the Toronto game.

That felt good to vent. Time to move on.

Now that the Renegades playoff hopes are effectively, if not mathematically quite yet, ended, it's time to turn my attention to the Sens brilliant opening to the season.

Led by newly minted scoring sensation Chris Neil (Alfredsson, Spezza, Heatley, and Hasek haven't been too shabby either) the Sens are off to a 6-0 start and showed no rust (at least in the snippets I saw in flipping from the Gades game a bit) despite a wonky early schedule that gave them the last week off (if only that week off could have come in February). The season's looking so bright for the Sens, they've gotta wear shaded visors.

From Wikipedia, some history on that song that salutes The Best Game You Can Name.

The song first appeared on Connors' 1973 album, Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Song. However, the song did not reach its tremendous popularity until 1992. It was at this time, that the song was played at Ottawa Senators games. Pat Burns, then coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs wanted to have it played in Toronto. Fans took a liking to the song, and it spread throughout the NHL.

That surprised me as it sounds a bit too recent to me. I only moved to Ottawa in '97, and had been to only 1 NHL game before that, but I seem to recall The Hockey Song being a staple at junior and university hockey games my whole life.

Then again, I grew up in PEI so we may have been ahead of the curve in playing our native son's signature tune (along with Bud the Spud, of course).

TSN has joined the growing list of podcasts, starting with a few from Off The Record. Two of the recent guests include Lonie Glieberman (last week) and Zdeno Chara (today). You can download their appearences through tsn.ca's podcasting site, and presumably through iTunes (or other podcasting software) eventually although their feed hasn't been added to iTunes quite yet.

While you're at tsn.ca, make sure to check out their early website attempts. Boy do those 1995-96 designs bring back memories of wasting time in UPEI's computer labs.

Finally, for me, it was game day at the Corel Centre. Sens vs. Habs. Only exhibition, but game day none the less.

A few quick hits:

• The Sens are obviously looking ahead to the season. They started out ok, but the later it got in the game, the more obvious it was that their heads were just not in last night's game. No jump, half-assed forechecking, no hitting, lots of brain farts and turnovers.
• As much as this game was lost by the Sens apathy, it was won by some spectacular saves by Yann Danis. Stay away from the glove hand!
• It's going to take a while to get used to Spezza as #19 and Schaefer as #27
• Not as much use of the stretch pass as I'd like to see, but tag-up offsides saved a few whistles
  
• The game was a virtual no hitter on both sides. Not sure if this is a function of the preseason, or being gun-shy from the new rules enforcement. Hitting is still allowed fellas.
• The McGratton fight was spectacular - one of the best fights I've ever seen
• Chris Phillips has seen much better nights
• Hasek had a few incredible stops, but let in a couple of stoppable ones too (although he was likely partly screened)
  

One thing that was apparent to me was that fan expectations for this team are sky-high this year. The fans, at least the ones around me, were extremely frustrated with the team's play in the third. While I can't get too worked up over a pre-season game, (especially one that the Sens were clearly looking past and coming on the heels of the Yankees clinching the division), the anger in the voices of the fans around me was a clear indication of the short fuse on fans' expectations this year. They expect nothing short of dominance.

One final note: Sportsnet colour guy Greg Millen has signed on as an analyst with Leafs TV. Not a huge loss, though he was funny at times. More often though, he grated on me , especially when making excuses for any bad goal that a goaltender would let in.

What will be interesting though, is to see who will replace him aside Dean Brown on Sportsnet. My money would be on Gord Wilson, which of course would have a trickle down effect on the TEAM1200. Dave Schreiber would be left to do the radio call for televised games teamed perhaps with the newly hired Shaun Van Allen (who I thought was good on the drive home last night). In turn, A.J. "Orgasmic Goal Call" Jacubec would take over more 67s games.

While "The Voice" is an Ottawa institution, his eyesight doesn't seem to be what it used to be and his regular mistakes make him a step down from Gord or Dean. We'll have to wait and see how things shake out.