A familiar (painful) SENSation

In the lotteries for happiness you have available to you rooting for a sports team isn’t an intelligent bet. In the NHL there is a 1/30 chance that your team is going to come out on top. Of course it isn’t quite a roll of the dice, some teams have overcome mere odds to be dominating forces. The Devils, Avalanche and Red Wings pretty much owned the 90s and turn of the century, the Oilers and Islanders had their chunk of the 80s, then before that Montreal owned just about everybody. Since their debut in the 92-93 season the modern incarnation of the Senators have had a pretty great record as a team. Sure they were last place in the NHL for 4 seasons running… but after that they’ve made the playoffs 10 times consecutively and have captured the presidents trophy and top place in their division numerous times. I probably didn’t “really” start becoming a Senators fan until 2000. When I was living in Newfoundland I actually was a fan of the New Jersey Devils. I used to play as them in NHLPA 93 for the Super Nintendo and oddly enough grew fond of the team. It was exciting watching them in the playoffs both as the bridesmaid to New York’s Cup and the big winner after that. Once I moved to Ontario I finally felt a connection of having a “Local Team” and of course that was Ottawa because Toronto isn’t a hockey team it’s an investment strategy. Since then there have been lots of highs during the regular season, especially devastating the Maple Leafs game after game, but the lows always came in the Playoffs, especially getting dumped by the underskilled Maple Leafs 4 times. Over the past 10 years we’ve developed the reputation as the “Choke Team”, all the talent all the momentum but no delivery in the playoffs.

This year it really felt different, from Game 1 against Pittsburgh the Senators have looked poised, determined and damn near unstoppable against 3 (debatably) “better” teams. We even demolished the #1 ranked Buffalo Sabres in 5 games. Now unfortunately the tides have turned for the worse. 2 Games in to the Stanley Cup Finals the Senators have yet to show up to play. The fire and ferocity that we’ve seen up to this point has seemed to have been snuffed by the suffocating defense of this Anaheim team. Saturday night’s game will undoubtedly be huge, it is realistically a “Must Win” although the same was probably true of last night’s game. Perhaps Ottawa can find a way to turn around and take it to the Ducks, but I am not blind to the fact that there is a possibility that Anaheim is simply the better team.

I really hope Ottawa can complete the Cinderella story. I want to see guys like Fisher, Neil and Corvo hoisting the cup. I want a Ottawa Senators 2007 Stanley Cup Champions hat. I want to be able to laugh at all the Leafs fans and say “Who’s choking now?” However, I think in the end I’m going to end up reflecting on another season of almost. That said I think the Senators really showed a lot of character this year regardless of the outcome and I am very proud of their accomplishments. If the cup isn’t to be this year, then I’ll hold on for another year when maybe it will happen. Thus is the cross we bare as fans. Good or bad they’re you’re team…. Until the Hamilton Predators start playing.

I wonder how many Senators flags we’ll see disappearing from cars next week?