Let’s begin this week’s column with a public service announcement for Senators followers.
The precise puck drop time for Monday’s recreation in opposition to the New York Rangers might be 7:51 p.m. ET. The official schedule will say it’s a 7:30 p.m. ET begin, however there are a few explanation why tonight’s recreation is pushed again barely.
For starters, it’s an Amazon Prime recreation – nationally televised throughout Canada – which implies they work in additional time for pre-game options and panel discussions. That normally places the beginning time at 7:45 p.m. ET for these video games, however tonight the Rangers are honouring Mika Zibanejad since will probably be his 1,000th profession recreation within the NHL.
As a consequence, the precise puck drop time this night might be 7:51 p.m. ET. This will purchase you an additional 20 minutes to wrap up your dinner, end some work, put your toddler to sleep – or no matter it’s that wants your consideration previous to puck drop.
If you aren’t pressed for time, the Amazon Prime pre-game present is completely price watching. They all the time have in-depth options and distinctive parts that you just solely discover on a Monday evening broadcast. When we have been in Vancouver a few weeks in the past, they carried out this terrific interview with Warren Foegele through the pre-game warmup.
The preliminary plan for tonight is for Andi Petrillo to conduct an prolonged interview with Thomas Chabot, as a part of her ‘Coffee With Andi’ sequence. And then Andi will conduct a bench interview with Shane Pinto after we hit the ice at Madison Square Garden for heat up.
It’s a number of Senators-related content material for a nationwide present, so I extremely recommend tuning in if you’ve acquired the time.
And it as soon as once more brings me to this query: Would you prefer to see NHL groups promote the precise puck drop time on their tickets and schedule – or are you okay with the present system that promotes the beginning of the tv broadcast?
In baseball, for instance, the Toronto Blue Jays all the time put the time of the primary pitch on their schedule and tickets. So a house recreation at Rogers Centre will say 7:07 p.m. on it – reasonably than 7:00 p.m.
In the hockey world, we by no means push the precise puck drop time. If we did, most of our Senators’ video games could be promoted as 7:08 p.m. begin instances.
Have a robust opinion on this matter? Send us an electronic mail to [email protected].
And don’t say you don’t have sufficient time to jot down in, as a result of you’ve acquired an additional 20 minutes to play with tonight.
Trivia time: As talked about, Mika Zibanejad will play his 1,000th profession NHL recreation on Monday evening in opposition to the Ottawa Senators – a cool twist contemplating he was a first-round choose of the Senators again in 2011.
This week’s trivia query: Can you identify the 5 different gamers drafted within the first spherical by the Ottawa Senators to additionally attain the 1000-game plateau within the NHL?
Answer on the backside of this column.
Our preliminary ‘Drop The Puck’ occasion
Last Wednesday’s recreation at Washington was actually probably the most disappointing results of the week for our staff. A 4-1 loss to the Capitals was the one blemish on our document over the previous 10 days.
But whereas our staff dropped that call at Capital One Arena, we did rating a win again at Canadian Tire Centre on the identical evening. We hosted our first ‘Drop The Puck’ occasion, geared toward educating the fundamentals of hockey to individuals who have by no means been uncovered to the game. One of our foremost goals right here was to attach with new Canadians who wished to be taught extra concerning the sport that’s woven into the material of our nation.
As the members entered the Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday, we requested them to put a sticker on a world map to point out their residence nation. It was actually cool to see the illustration from all around the globe, as folks positioned stickers on Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Jordan, Senegal, Sudan and Ukraine.
After they ate a Canadian-inspired dinner – full with a poutine station – we introduced them into the world bowl at Canadian Tire Centre. I spoke about my very own journey within the sport, which began with my mother and father immigrating from Tanzania to Canada when my mother was pregnant with me.
Chris Phillips popped by and answered questions from the viewers.
We then guided them by way of an hour-long dialog concerning the historical past of the sport and the fundamentals of the game. We had gamers on the ice to reveal offside, icing and penalties. (It was notably enjoyable watching our on-ice volunteers present an instance of a spearing penalty).
And simply earlier than all of us watched the sport in opposition to the Capitals on our Bell HD display at centre ice, we stunned the members with tickets to an upcoming Senators recreation and present playing cards to our Sens retailer.
They have been completely thrilled with this and one individual yelled out, “You just made me a Senators fan!”
We obtained a number of constructive suggestions from the members the subsequent day and all of the credit score belongs to my colleagues Matthew Franczyk and Alyssa Almstedt, who deliberate your complete night.
We left the evening decided to copy this occasion sooner or later. Growing the sport and talking to new audiences is one thing we should be higher at with our sport.
So in case you have any concepts for a way we will execute the same occasion sooner or later, please ship us an electronic mail to [email protected]
