Citizen hockey writers Wayne Scanlan, Ken Warren, Allen Panzeri and James Gordon bring you hockey news as it happens, while reporters Alicja Siekierska, Candice So and Katia Dmitrieva are scouring the city for the latest all-star news and events.
All three of them left Ottawa under circumstances that either saddened, surprised or stunned them, and the memories of their partings stir deep feelings, even to this day.
The villains get all the ink. In the days leading up to All-Star Weekend, the name Alex Ovechkin was on everyone’s lips, in everyone’s tweets.
Come the weekend, it will be Ottawa and Sweden against the rest of the hockey world at Scotiabank Place. Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson, aided by assistant captain Henrik Lundqvist, the New York Rangers star goaltender, stuck close to the local and Swedish themes at Thursday’s NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft at Gatineau’s Lac Leamy Casino.
See who was chosen when at the NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft in Gatineau.
BY BRUCE ARTHUR — As the hockey world descended on Ottawa for the NHL all-star weekend, the fight was largely over which distraction would prove most effective at overshadowing this corporate monument built around a game in which not a single thing matters, other than not getting hurt.
When Raymond Giroux thinks about where his son Claude has put himself — second in the NHL scoring race with 55 points, and headed to his second consecutive All-Star Game, this time in his hometown — he shakes his head in wonderment.
Thanks to a wrist injury here, a groin injury there and the general sulking attitude of Washington Capitals left winger Alexander Ovechkin, the National Hockey League was forced into a few more last minute changes for All-Star Weekend.