Just outside the main entrance to Canadian Tire Centre on Monday night, a throng of Ottawa Senators fans lost their minds when Dylan Cozens scored five-hole on Frederik Andersen to even the score in Game 2.
All layered up for a watch party in the Red Zone — it was -1 C in Kanata when Cozens scored at 9:10 p.m. — hundreds of die-hards leaped out of their lawn chairs to celebrate.
A man in an NHL 100 Classic Erik Karlsson jersey ran around in circles, waving a giant Sens flag. A group of teenagers formed a mosh pit, one lad convincing his friends to hoist him up for a short-lived crowd surf.
Video of the revelry shared on social media by the National Hockey League club was worthy of 100 replays, each time zeroing in on a different person’s reaction. It perfectly encapsulated the current moment for an eager fan base yearning to experience the thrill of truly meaningful hockey.
And on Thursday night, you better believe that everyone lucky enough to nab a ticket to Game 3 between the Senators and Carolina Hurricanes will do their damnedest to turn the CTC into absolute bedlam.
Players and Executives Anticipate Electric Atmosphere
“It’s going to be rocking in there tomorrow night,” Senators forward Drake Batherson said after an optional skate Wednesday. “We all can’t wait.”
Sens president Cyril Leeder says ticket sales went so well in the lead up to the postseason that they could’ve sold 30,000 more admissions for each home game if they had the capacity. This time, barely any finagling had to be done in order to get tickets into Senators fans’ hands only, unlike the monumental effort it took to keep the barn more red than blue 12 months ago.
“We’re pretty excited about the fact that it’s going to be entirely, 100 per cent a home crowd,” Leeder told the Ottawa Citizen in a phone interview. “In the Leafs series last year, it kind of built. Game 6 got pretty close to 90-95 per cent Sens fans, but you still had a thousand or 1,500 Leaf fans in the building. We’re looking forward to Thursday to see our home crowd.”
“The way we ended last year, how loud the fans were in Game 6, we’re expecting them to be louder this year,” Leeder added.
Fan Stories and Expectations
That’s a reasonable prediction, considering that the faithful chanted “We want playoffs!” virtually every single period in the final weeks of the regular season. Julio Hashem, a Sens fan since the franchise’s inaugural 1992-93 season, is taking his seven-year-old son to his first Stanley Cup playoff game on Thursday.
It will be a heartwarming, full-circle evening for a father who knows exactly what it’s like to be a little overwhelmed by the frenzied arena. “When they clinched that spot against Buffalo in ’97,” Hashem told the Citizen, “the one with (Steve) Duchesne scoring late against the Sabres, I remember, being a kid, like, I couldn’t hear the buzzer, the final horn or anything. The building was so loud it was crazy.”
With the Senators down 2-0 in the series, the home crowd could provide the boost needed to get back into the series. The atmosphere is expected to be legendary, as fans are ready to create a madhouse environment.
