Battle of Ontario Should be Worth Waiting For

 In the classic(?) words of the legendary(??) Spice Girls: Tell me what you want, what you really, really want. And here we are. You wanted the provincial gob smacker? You got it. Upon further consideration, if you’re rooting for the Ottawa Senators, you’re more than happy with the card pull.
Ottawa Senators GM Steve Staios

‘Summer of Steve’ well underway

 Like the result or not, Step 1 in the Ottawa Senator ‘rebuild’ was accomplished lickety-split. The hiring of Travis Green just last week, while certainly not universally lauded, quickly took care of some much-needed business during what promises to be a busy off-season. Quite simply, there’s lots-to-do in Ottawa as

Rielly, Greig incident draws out the ‘Pin-Dicks’

 Middle ground and balanced opinion? Not that we were expecting anything different but there wasn’t much of that coming out of Saturday night’s coup d’etat of the Ontario hockey universe by frothing fans on both sides of the fracas involving Ottawa’s Riley Greig and Toronto’s Morgan Rielly. Make no mistake,

Battle? What battle?

 What we have here is a national crisis. When one of our country’s most established, venerated, respected institutions tumbles into near obscurity, what else would you call it? Yep, crisis pretty well sums it up. The Battle of Ontario? Please. Nerf Ball war is more like it. Ottawa and Toronto

Let me get this straight – Ottawa is, um, fun?

 If Ottawa is indeed the town that fun forgot, no one stepped up to tell the local hockey community to keep the noise down after sunset. That was pretty evident Tuesday night at the usually vacant, silent-as-a-library (shh!) Canadian Tire Centre during the Ottawa Senators’ home opener. A sell-out? Come

Trade-deadline turmoil in Toronto?

 It’s expected the Ottawa Senators will look a lot like the Ottawa Senators come Monday next week. In other words, don’t expect much noise at the trade deadline (3 p.m. ET March 21st). Outside of shipping out a couple of minor role players and potentially Swiss army knife Nick Paul,

Social media pushes the envelope, for once

 The days of turning a blind eye are over. If there is one good thing about social media – and there really is not much, truly – it’s that information and deplorable, inappropriate behaviors can no longer be swept under the rug. (Ask certain characters currently in public office). When

Leafs entire self-perspective on the line . . . again

 ABOVE: Nylander has been the best Leafs forward. When one school teacher unwittingly causes another teacher's dismissal, he is challenged to an after-school fight (premise). Yeah, it was a truly awful film (Fist Fight) but doesn’t it ring truly true for the Toronto Maple Leafs who have to face their

Camps open league-wide, prompting questions and answers

 Above: Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk This past Sunday hockey returned across the board in the National Hockey League with the opening of training camps. The Ottawa Senators, one of seven teams to not qualify for the playoffs last season, opened up a few days earlier on Dec. 30th. And so it

Losing culture could be problematic down the road for Senators

 PHOTO: Courtesy NHLI via Getty Images We realize over here in this corner that two games is indeed a small sample size, however it is troubling to watch this year’s (early) rendition of the Ottawa Senators creating, what you would hope, is not a template. Yes, it’s wondrous to fill the