Vancouver Canucks vs Ottawa Senators
Scotiabank Place, Kanata, ON
Nov. 11, 2010
Vancouver 6 – Ottawa 2
Hats off to the Sens organization for knowing how to stage a pre-game tribute without having it take forever (MLSE take note. You’ve adopted our tradition of passing around a huge Canadian flag, even adding a Leafs flag as a bit of one-upmanship. Our concise, to the point, pre-game ceremonies are also worth imitating).
Thursday being Remembrance Day, it was great to bring out a few WWII veterans to receive their well-earned tribute. This great opening ceremony included the sight of close to 20,000 people in this huge arena, humbly lowering their heads in hushed tribute as they offered up two moments of silence.
The silence in what is usually a quite noisy arena was appropriately moving.
This ceremony didn’t take long but it was quite effective.
And then a funny thing happened. We’re used to sitting in the 100 Level (the lowest level), but usually in the ends, rarely along the side, as we were Thursday night.
So there we were, standing and singing the national album, as usual, and some dooffus behind us whacks us in the back of the head with the edge of his Sens flag. Annoyed, we turn around to give him heck. (Yes, we assumed it was a guy.)
Imagine our surprise in discovering it’s NOT someone’s personal Sens flag. In fact it’s the City’s HUGE Canada flag and we just happen to be on the lower edge of it as it moves from Section to Section. Once we realize what it is, we gladly join in, stretching our arms high and proudly helping pass this flag overhead.
I should also note that later in the game, during a TV time-out, there was another tribute made, via the scoreboard. I missed the intro, but when I looked up and saw the picture, name and years of service for the soldier being honoured, I quickly joined everyone else in applauding. Within seconds, without urging, we were all on our feet, still clapping.
I looked around and all the players AND all the on-ice officials (refs and linesmen) were also applauding. Felt good, on this day.
Game On For All Kinds Of Fans
Well the Sedin Twins sure didn’t waste any time showing us there stuff. Good thing I remembered to inform my wife Mariette that their jersey numbers were 33 (Henrik) and 22 (Daniel) just as the game was starting and just before their opening goal — scored within something like 22 seconds of the opening face off. 🙁
I think there were probably more Canucks fans in the building for tonight’s sell out (19,000+) than Leaf fans when Toronto comes to town.
There was also a wide variety of Canuck sweaters, featuring just about every logo and colour scheme the team ever employed. There was a gentleman in front of me, who’d brought his mom to the game, who kind of fooled me with his red sweater. It was obvious from his cheering he was a Vancouver fan but as I said to Mariette: “When did the Canucks ever wear red?”
Mystery solved after the first goal when he turned around to celebrate, revealing that he was wearing a Team Canada sweater from the Vancouver Olympics. (I left mine at home in favour of my red Sens #4 Phillips jersey.)
He joked that he was in disguise so he wouldn’t be harassed but I figured it was a pretty thin disguise if for someone jumping all over the place and screaming like a wild man when the Canucks scored. (My kind of fan.)
He also had the habit of joining other Canuck fans in screaming “Louuuuuu!” every time an Ottawa shot bounced of goalie Roberto Luongo’s chest. (Far too often for our beloved Sens to have any chance of winning this high-speed contest.)
For his first game back from injury, Sens goaltender Pascal Leclair didn’t seem to play that poorly. It just seemed that at certain times when Vancouver jumped into overdrive, the boys in front of Leclair just couldn’t prevent the Canucks from scoring.
Take Henrik Sedin in the near corner in Ottawa’s end. Without looking, a behind-the-back pass along the back boards to his brother Daniel in the other corner, who immediately dishes it out front, where a one timer hits the back of the net almost before we can track where the puck went when Henrik seemed to just dump it somewhere.
Hard to blame Leclair (or any goaltender) on that kind of superb, instinctive, blindingly fast play.
Other times Leclair made some fine stops, even if he wasn’t always sure where the puck went.
I did ask the “Louuu”-chanter in front of me what we were supposed to shout when Leclair made a save — “Luhhhhhhh!”?
Quebec City and Toronto Check In
Next to me on my right was a young gentleman who, at the start of the game, I thought was going to do a rapid-fire, play-by-play, en francaise, into his cell phone. Fortunately the call didn’t last long and he switched to using his phone to snap a couple of post-goal photos — of the players getting ready for the face-off at centre ice and of the scored-upon goaltender standing alone in his net. Me, I just silently scratched my head as I watched him.
Fortunately he put the phone away and we got to chat. Since he and the other young gentleman with him were conversing in French, I asked if they were Montreal Canadiens fans. “No,” he said with a big smile, “Nordiques!” I happily let him know that we are all in favour of Quebec City getting its NHL franchise back.
Mariette was on my left. On her left were two gentlemen from Toronto.
They weren’t wearing hockey jerseys, but readily admitted where they were from once asked. “You’re not going to shout ‘Go Leafs, Go!” are you?” I asked. The one beside Mariette chuckled. “No,” he said, Not tonight.”
Even if they hadn’t told us they were from Toronto, we would have guessed when they were late for the start of the second period — casually making their way to their seats some eight minutes into the action.
I don’t believe they’ve ever sat in the Platinum, or even Gold, seats at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. They were too surprised and excited when they first arrived at their seats at Scotiabank Place — across the aisle from the blue-line end of the Sens bench and 11 rows up. They almost couldn’t believe how close to the ice they were.
I gather it’s almost an impossibility for the average Leafs fan to get such seats at the ACC in Toronto. This reminded me of when we went to a Blue Jays home game in August when they hosted the New York Yankees. There were plenty of Yankee fans all around us where we sat, 15 rows up, just past third base, including a whole family to my right. I got chatting with the mom and she confirmed that they come to Toronto to see their Yankees because they can’t get seats this close to the game, and at anywhere near this price ($71 ea) at Yankee Stadium.
Anyway, the Toronto lads next to us admitted they learnt this Toronto style of being fashionably late in returning to the high-priced seats from watching Leafs home games on TV.
They never made it back to their seats for the third period.
Joshing With The Canucksters
Beyond them were more Canucks fans. Some even wearing team jerseys. In fact I saw a whole variety of Canucks jerseys with every logo and colour scheme the team ever tried. Remember those yellow jerseys with what looked like a skate slashing across the front?
Several rows up behind us and across the aisle were two or three rows of Canucks fans all in one place, wearing an assortment of jerseys. There was one muscular young man sitting on the aisle with a Canuck jersey with the name “Bertruzzi” written across the back of the shoulders.
I couldn’t help, in passing, stopping in feigned confusion. Scratching my beard and putting a puzzled look on my face, I said: “Bertruzzi? Bertruzzi? What team does he play for?” Having made it clear, by overacting, that I was just having a bit of fun, he gave me a sheepish look and said, “Detroit.” We both chuckled. Which was certainly better than him getting up and punching me in the head as I walked away. (Ouch. Couldn’t resist saying that here, and NOT to his face.)
Unfortunately this large cluster of Canuck fans weren’t very good singers. When the score got out of hand in the third period, the truly mangled the “Hey, Hey, Goodbye” song. And I had to cringe and hope there were no Habs fans anywhere close when these guys couldn’t get anywhere close to the proper tempo for the “Ole” chant.
And when the score got to be 5-1 for the Canucks and they started chanting “Pizz-a! Pizz-a!” we knew it was time to get out of there.
A One-sided Score, Tired Driver And Early Exit
Actually Mariette was tired from a hard day at work and it was well past her bedtime, so I agreed to leave early late in the third period. Also, the handicapped lot where we park fills up with idling taxi cabs as the end of the game nears and it can be nice to get out and exit before the chaos of cabs, cars and the occasional ambulance and Para-Transpo van, or two, make things difficult.
On the way up the stairs, I had to say a friendly goodnight to the Canuck crowd. “You guys can’t sing worth beans,” I leaned in and said. “But your team earned its win and I hope you all had a great time.” That comment, and a big thumbs up all around, made our exit a little easier. Except they again began croaking out “Hey, Hey, Goodbye” as we completed our climb to the exit, cringing along with the Ottawa fans sitting behind these terrible troubadours.
By the way, they DIDN’T really chant “Pizz-a! Pizz-a!” That’s what Senators fans chant when Ottawa scores five goals because if the team scores a sixth goal, those at the game can cash in their ticket stubs the next day at a Pizza Pizza outlet for a free slice of pizza. When it does happen, I’m pretty sure the majority of the crowd never cashes in on this giveaway. But they still like the feeling of earning a free pizza — if they took the trouble to go claim it.
Friendly rivalry, kibbitzing, shouting out faux trash talk and just having a good time, win or lose, that’s all part of really enjoying a live hockey game.
Ottawa Looked Good Even If It Was A Blowout
Despite the eventual score, Thursday night was the fastest and hardest I’ve seen the Sens play all year.
It was just that Vancouver was better.
Though Ottawa often spent more time in the Vancouver end than the Canucks did in our end, the Canucks did an excellent job of blocking the passing and shooting lanes, while still letting Luongo see just about every shot.
On offence, Vancouver had the skill and the cohesion, even at high speed, to bury their occasional scoring chances.
Ottawa didn’t. Too many shots from afar and not enough scrambling in front of the net for even a so-called dirty goal.
And yet it wasn’t a depressing game. Surely if Ottawa had played at this tempo against many of the teams they’ve already played, they’d have absolutely whumped them all.
Vancouver IS a superior team. They were well rested and at times seemed to attack like fast and furious ferrets. To their credit, the Sens stayed with them, and outshot them, for much of the game.
They just didn’t have the finesse, or luck, to bury their scoring chances.
“HENRIK, YOUR BROTHER IS UGLY!”
One of the main reasons to go to this game, our first Sens home game of the year, was to see such a skilled team in action, especially the amazing Sedin twins. (I did get a huge laugh in our section when, stealing from a sign I saw on a televised Canucks game, I shouted: “HENRIK, YOUR BROTHER IS UGLY!”)
Mariette doesn’t know a lot of the players on opposing teams, especially those from the west who play in Ottawa every few years. But she (as I did) got great pleasure witnessing Henrik and Daniel weave their amazing magic.
Last year we made a point of seeing the Blackhawks live during one of their rare visits to Scotiabank Place. As predicted, it meant that I, and especially Mariette, could identify with the Chicago players that much more as they later went on their amazing run to the Stanley Cup.
This year, if, as many expect, Vancouver ends up as the western finalist in the Stanley Cup, again we will be able to relate more to the players, having seen them live, close up, and in action, rather tremendous action.
Hmmm. The Senators go on the road now. Their next home game is Nov. 22 against the Los Angeles Kings. Oh dear. Don’t they have some stars and aren’t they in contention to rival Vancouver?
They certainly don’t come to town often. We’ll just have to see.