Truth is, Chris Phillips nearly didn’t play a single game for the Ottawa Senators, let alone one thousand. On draft day, June 22, 1996, Senators general manager Pierre Gauthier was up at 5 a.m. entertaining offers for his first overall draft pick. None was enticing enough, and Gauthier selected the Calgary-born Phillips, the consensus No. [...]
About Wayne Scanlan
It has been my pleasure to carry a flag for the Citizen sports department for 25 years, and a privilege to write a column since 1991. As the NHL Senators took over our town, I shifted in the mid-1990s from a general sports columnist to a mostly hockey guy. Representing this newspaper and its chain I have covered men's and women's hockey at several Olympic Games. London was my 10th Olympic assignment, as part of the Postmedia team at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in England.
Along the ride I have been fortunate to cover the Tour de France, twice, and numerous Stanley Cup playoffs and Grey Cup championships. The Senators will dictate further travel plans.
Let’s suppose a visitor is new to the city, if not new to the planet. His name is Frank and he’s in town for the NHL all-star weekend, and then sticks around for several days, long enough to take in the Ottawa Senators-Toronto Maple Leafs game at Scotiabank Place on Saturday.
To coincide with Tuesday’s birthday of Charles Dickens, this is A Tale of Two Cities, or at least, two goaltending situations.
All is not lost for the Ottawa Senators. It only seems that way after Ottawa’s sixth straight defeat came at the hands of the mortal enemy Toronto Maple Leafs, a true red-faced, 5-0 embarrassment.
Hear that noise in the background? That would be the hoofbeats of NHL horses coming up behind the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference. Still just background noise, but getting louder.
OTTAWA — For Jesse Winchester, there is light at the end of the tunnel, light that no longer hurts his eyes. One month after being slammed head first into the boards by Paul Gaustad of the Buffalo Sabres, Winchester, a 28-year-old Ottawa Senators forward, is taking his first big steps toward recovery from a concussion. [...]
They are a secret no longer. No more are they the forgotten, rebuilding Ottawa Senators.