Here are just a few of the reasons I’m rooting for the Senators this year

From a good article today on the highs and many lows of Ottawa’s years in the NHL.

Here are a few lowlights, on and off ice over the years, to jog a memory or two:

– At the 1992 NHL expansion draft, Senators general manager Mel Bridgman selects three ineligible players in a row, prompting eye-rolling from other teams’ representatives, and Mel’s famous line: “Ottawa apologizes.”

– An Ottawa Sun circulation employee, a former Ottawa 67’s player named Larry Skinner, who played a few dozen NHL games in the 1970s, attends the Senators’ first training camp to do a first-person diary. Skinner leads the camp in scoring.

– The Senators lose 41 consecutive road games in 1992-’93. When they beat the New York Islanders on the Island (April 10, 1993), for their first road win, players react as though they have won the Stanley Cup. Was that a highlight or lowlight? Former goaltender turned TSN analyst Glenn Healy, the goaltender of record for the Islanders that night, is still trying to live it down.

– The Senators have bus issues in Boston. They end up on a city subway. A local spots a couple of well-dressed young men with sports bags slung over their shoulder and asks where they’re from.

“Ottawa.”

“Ottawa!” the Bostonian replies. “Great city. Lousy hockey team.”

“This is the hockey team,” he is told.

“A hockey team riding dah subway? No wondah you guys stink!”

– Sports Illustrated declares the Senators the worst team in sports history.

These cracked me up. Seriously, though, it would be great to see these guys pull it off. Go Sens!