Civic milestone: Senator’s staffers remember wild opening night 30 years later

Saturday, October 8th will mark the 30th anniversary of the modern day Ottawa Senators’ first game.

Those of us who were there, and thousands who weren’t but say we were, have retold much of the yarn over and over again – that about the brave expansion team that brought the Montreal Canadiens into Ottawa’s franchise opening game defeated 5-3.

Neil Brady scored the first goal for the Senators, and things got crazy in front of 10,500 at the old Civic Center. Yes, the dreaded Senators won on Oct. 8 and then went on a 21-game winless streak, including a lone road win over Glenn Healy and the New York Islanders on April 10, en route to a 10-70-4 record.

Senators captain Laurie Boschman, who scored a hat-trick in that lone road win, couldn’t express his joy on the ice right now until it struck him, “We’re going to Disney World! we’re going to Disney World!” he shouted to his teammates in Ottawa. The joy of so few victories.

Occasionally, a seldom-told story twines about opening night. That was the case this week as I spoke with former Senator President Cyril Leeder, the man who co-founded the franchise with original owner Bruce Firestone and early general manager Randy Sexton.

Leeder shared a story about a backflip Brian Orser, a concerned Habs head coach Jacques Demers, and a threat from CBC TV to cancel a 30-minute pre-game feature for the Senators over a last-minute snafu with Demers’ demand for a flood after a figure skating show that should lead into the big game.

At first, Demers was probably as impressed by Orser’s backflip as anyone else, as the Canadian skating star was one of the first to pull off the feat. This came after morning game day skating when Orser was practicing his routine and a Canadiens Demers staff member called out and said, “You have to see this.”

Of course, to start the backflip, Orser dug his skate picks deep into the ice and chopped it, and Demers let the senators know — hey, if Orser does that before our game, we want a flood. To fix the ice. Certainly a legitimate request.

Dave Dakers, a Senators staffer, was the liaison between the team and the City of Ottawa as the City owned the Civic Center. Dakers had to coordinate pre-game programming with everyone involved, including CBC, which aired the game and aired a lengthy Senators segment leading to Orsers Skate with a group of amateur skaters. The game should follow this skate.

Dakers called the network to say they needed an extra 15 minutes to flood the ice to Orser and were immediately turned away. “We don’t make 15 minutes of dead air from the Civic Center. Skip the tide or we’ll cancel the pre-game show altogether,” a producer told Dakers.

So Dakers called Sexton, the GM, who was up to his ears with last-minute details ahead of the first game. He explained the dilemma. If we skip the tide, Demers threatens not to get the team on the ice. If we flood we could lose the pre-game show.

Sexton said: “Dave, I have a thousand things to do. What I really want is to see the backflip. AND the pre-game show. Find out.’

And so Dakers became a double agent. He told the Habs that Orser would skip the backflip and told the network no tide. Of course, Orser did the backflip, there was no tide, but play continued. At this point, everyone involved had bigger fish to fry.

“Canadians weren’t happy about that,” says Leeder, “but they won the Stanley Cup that year (1993), so I think they were okay.”

That’s correct. The last Canada-based team to win a trophy began their season with a loss to one of the worst-seeded expansion teams in league history. If the Habs needed an early wake-up call, they got it on Oct. 8 in Ottawa.

Became real when the first goal was scored

It’s easy to forget that the first game in October 1992 was the culmination of a long, drawn out process. The famous pickup hockey meeting at Ottawa’s old Lions Arena, where Firestone proposed the idea of ​​an NHL team to Leeder and Sexton, had taken place in 1987. By the time all permits were in place and Ottawa was preparing for the inaugural game, about five years had passed.

“It was a big build and a lot of effort,” says Leeder. “Like anything else, the more effort you put into it, the more you appreciate it. They enjoy it when it actually happens. So it was definitely a pretty exciting day.”

The last minute logistics were intense. Everyone wanted to be part of the story, wanted tickets to this game, and so the pressure on Senators management was huge in terms of ticket demand alone. It didn’t help that the Civic Center was about half the size of most NHL rinks.

Frank Finnigan, who was a member of the early-era Senators, was scheduled to retire his No. 8 on opening night. Unfortunately, Finnigan died less than a year before the first game, so his son, Frank Jr., was there to celebrate the honor in his father’s place.

Alanis Morissette, then 18, sang the national anthem.

“We thought we were doing her a huge favor by allowing her to sing the anthem,” says Leeder. “As it turns out, she was doing us a favor.”

Ottawa-born Morrissette was released three years later Jagged little pill and became a pop star.

The game itself was as much an event as a hockey game. People were dizzy to think that the NHL had returned to Ottawa after a 58-year hiatus. The anticipation was palpable. After a scoreless first period, Brady broke the deadlock on a power play with a goal just 26 seconds into the second period.

“For me, the game didn’t start until we scored a goal,” Leeder recalled. “There was this piling up of us when we scored and the place went crazy.”

Many people later told Leeder they came to the game as longtime Habs fans and left as fans of this newly promoted Ottawa team.

Enthusiasm from fans helped players: Boschman

Boschman, captain of the Senators in 1992-93, believes community enthusiasm helped players achieve this unlikely victory.

“I think it was just the excitement of opening the season with a new team, an extension team,” says Boschman. “And I think what’s happened over the year some teams would take for granted, right? And so we played against each other for two periods and then suddenly in the third half they went one better and scored two or three goals.

“But we felt tremendous support in Ottawa. Even though we weren’t that good, people in the community were just glad they had an NHL team. And now a whole generation has grown up with the team. My boys who grew up here are in their 30s and are big fans of the Ottawa Senators.”

Rome built in a day?

That the senators defied the odds surprised everyone, including the headline writers. Citizen’s then sports editor, Graham Parley, had his pages laid out with a headline that read, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It was the perfect head, alluding to the patience it would take to run an expansion team to follow, and also touched on the Roman centurion theme of the senators. There was only one problem. As the third half progressed, it became increasingly clear that Ottawa would stun the Canadiens with an upset win.

Without missing a beat, Parley adjusted his headline to read, “Maybe Rome Was Built in a Day.”

In retrospect, maybe not a single day exactly. In 30 years, the Senators have been to one Stanley Cup Final, three Conference Finals, and continue to pursue the elusive Cup. On the eve of their 30th anniversary season, the Senators are gearing up for another run as a team to be reckoned with.