Hockey Villainy with the Ottawa Senators

When the word villain pops up, I immediately think of Snidely Whiplash from the Dudley Do-Right cartoon. Or even the often-defeated Daedalus who battled Hercules to no avail on many Saturday morning episodes of, well, Hercules.

This makes me both old, and a little off-centre.

But nonetheless, we can turn the topic over to the game of hockey.

When I was a little younger, guys like Ulf Samuelsson, Tyson Nash, Matt Cooke, Sean Avery (of course), Dale Hunter, Kenny Linesman, Darius Kasparaitis, Claude Lemieux, Jarkko Ruutu, Esa Tikkanen and Ottawa’s own, Matt Barnaby championed the cause. (I’m sure you have your own list, but this is just a small sampling for examples sake).

That adage that you hated to play against them but would love to have them on your team hangs with all these guys. They were pests and pesky and sometimes downright dirty.

Nowadays though, what classifies as ‘villain’ falls not only in the ‘dirty’ category but also in the ‘I don’t wanna play here anymore’ grouping. (I think you might get a hint to where we’re going . . . when we eventually get there).

If you’re an NHL team, say the Ottawa Senators – and more appropriately an NHL fan base, say of the Senators – here are some of the guys you just love, and loved, to despise.

BRADY TKACHUK

Didn’t take long to get right to the point, eh?

They say there are several stages of grief: denial, then anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. And in this case, they are immense. Especially the anger section which is now practically indelible and will be for a long, long, long period of time. In fact, I’m not sure Ottawa fandom will ever crest into that last category of acceptance.

Brady, now of the Florida Panthers, stated for years the idea that he didn’t want to play here long-term was quite simply ridiculous. Well, ridiculous came to roost earlier this summer.

So much for denial.

Safe to say that Ottawa fandom has Wednesday, Oct. 21^st stapled to its collective foreheads when the least favourite of the Tkachuk brothers (who could have ever believed that would come to fruition?) visits in a Panthers’ uniform.

DANY HEATLEY

Please see above . . . although, this one was kind of all-over-the-place.

In 2005, Ottawa GM John Muckler swapped all-star Marian Hossa and defenceman Greg de Vries to Atlanta for Heater. He was terrific, playing alongside Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson on Ottawa’s Pizza Line. That trio lead the Senators to their only (modern day) Stanley Cup final a couple of years later.

While getting rid of Hossa was painful – he went on to win multi-Cups with the Blackhawks – what happened with Heatley stung more.

He opted for the ‘I-don’t-wanna-play-here-anymore’ motif when then Ottawa head coach Cory Clouston cut down his ice time, likely due to a slack defensive game.

Heatley vetoed a deal to Edmonton but eventually, in the fall of 2009, accepted a major swap to San Jose where he could skate with Jumbo Joe Thornton, among others.

Give the Ottawa fan base some credit though. Two seasons ago, the Pizza Line re-united for a tribute and the Heater was welcomed back with (somewhat) open arms.

Hello, acceptance.

DANIEL ALFREDSSON

Ottawa’s favourite player quickly became its’ least in 2013 when he signed a deal to play with the Senators’ rivals in Detroit. This after 17 seasons of being the face of the franchise in Ontario East.

Fences were eventually mended a little more than a year later when Alfie signed a one-day deal to retire as a Senator.

This summer, in a shocker, Alfie inked a contract to work as an associate coach with the – gulp – Toronto Maple Leafs.

Lots of back-and-forth with this one but this corner maintains he’ll forever be the most popular player in franchise history.

At this point we’ll move past the ‘I-don’t-wanna-play-here-anymore’ gang and move into opposition villainy. So, you get a pass here Alexei Yashin, among others.

DARCY TUCKER

Even Tie Domi held/holds more acceptance here in Ottawa than Tucker. And that’s saying a lot.

Tucker, that little ball of hate, turned the ignition on in the early days of the Battle of Ontario. His ongoing antagonism with the entire Ottawa team, but particularly Chris Neil, was legendary stuff.

Who can forget his jumping into the Ottawa bench to fight Neil and all bystanders. Wild. Absolutely wild.

SIDNEY CROSBY

No joke.

One of the greatest of all time was responsible for ending durable defenceman Marc Methot’s regular season in 2017 with a vicious two-hander that severed Methot’s finger.

No major penalty on the play; no minor penalty on the play; no supplemental discipline from the league.

Senators’ owner Eugene Melnyk called out Crosby as being a complete whiner after the incident.

Oh yeah, Crosby was also disliked – intensely – for morphing into an Ottawa playoff killer as he led the way to three post-season ousting’s, in 2008, 2010 and 2017.

MATT COOKE

The words ‘forensic inquiry’ still sticks.

One day before Valentine’s in 2013, Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke ran into Ottawa’s MVP Erik Karlsson and the collision ended up cutting the defenceman’s Achilles tendon.

Karlsson’s regular season was toast.

Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk was so enraged that he called for a forensic inquiry to prove that the Achilles chop was intentional.

The league deemed the incident accidental.

To this day, Cooke is right up there on the Senators’ Wall of Villainy.

We’ll end it here, but could certainly go on and on, and on.

I’m sure you have your own list . . . discuss amongst yourselves and buddies.

thegrossgame@yahoo.com