The Fabric of a Senator | Breakaway presented by Bell S6 E5

The Fabric of a Senator | Breakaway presented by Bell S6 E5

I believe we’re going to take the next step as a group here because of the character of the group. I believe it’s a special group. I watch you guys dayto day. I know you care for one another. Uh special groups do special things. It all starts now. Ready. a thought from you on on the excitement level uh for yourself uh and just in in that building. Always a fresh start at this time of year, but coming off uh the the playoff appearance last year, what what’s the excitement level within that building? Yeah, I think it’s it’s huge. Um you know, you’re you’re right. I mean, and no matter how the season goes, uh, the year before, uh, this is always an exciting time of year, but I think when you when you come off a season like they did last year, I think that’s even heightened a little bit more. So, uh, I think you you hear it, uh, when, you know, hear the players and and management, coaches talking. Um but you know even around the uh the offices uh I think you know everybody is uh you know it’s uh they’re they’re in a little tougher spot this year cuz uh expectations are certainly a little bit higher when the team kind of stays pretty similar. uh there’s confidence that should build within the group that that comes from Steve Stos and obviously Michael and everybody in the uh management group to to have the faith in us to be able to take the next step while kind of keeping most of the guys together and obviously our core group of guys are young players that uh will be really good for a long time. I thought the experience to make the playoffs last year was so big for them uh finally to can you know after five, six, seven years you’ve never made the playoffs. these guys have done the heavy lifting and they can finally say on even on an individual basis that they’ve made the playoff these they’ve had like somewhat success and now we’re trying to u put ourselves in the in the the group of teams that are contenders every year. There’s probably six to eight uh any given year and it’s tough to knock one of the teams down and uh yeah, we’ll see what happens, but we should be very confident heading into this year. Hello guys. [Music] How we doing? You guys ready for a fun day today? Oh yeah. You guys want some signatures? Perfect. Make sure I get everybody here. Hello. Hello. How are you? Nice to see you. Perfect. Savannah. Great spot. Hey, Brady. You want to know who’s my dad’s favorite player? Who you are? No way. I’ll take that any Perfect. There you go. I’m taking that any day of the week. Do a group picture. Oh, hey. Nice to see you, man. Thinks good. Yeah, things good. Let’s go. [Music] Party. All right, let’s go. [Applause] Here we go. [Music] Thank you. Awesome. Oh man. Thank you guys. Thanks for letting me get a picture with you guys. I appreciate it. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you guys. I’ll do it right on the seven. Perfect. There you go. No problem at all. Appcate to get smile big, guys. Have a good one, guys. All right. Thank you. We’ll see you out there. Come watch my whole one tonight. You have to get one [Music] for the golf. Are we ready to play some golf this morning? I can’t hear you. Are you ready to play some golf and raise some money for such great charitable organizations? Yes. Go. The character of this group, you guys get to see it on the ice, but what they do off the ice as well. And uh we do all these events where we ask our players to get out there and they do it with a ton of enthusiasm and you’re there for a certain period of time. They get you there for an hour or two and I know our players because of the character of the group. Uh they stick around until every last autograph signed for that. I want to thank this group. I’m I’m extremely excited for us you guys. Um and uh thank you for what you do to for the community. So due to the rain that we saw on May 3rd, we are unfortunately car path only. We are not car path only folks, okay? We haven’t had rain all year. To me, it means the world to me because it brings our fans, our corporate sponsors, our players and staff all together under a venue. We have fun and uh raising money uh for great causes. And um in this case uh you know when you when you do good for the community uh it’s uh you know it’s it’s a good way to start the season. It’s also the beginning of our season, right? Training camp’s around the corner and um it feels good. you know, you you go into it feeling good and uh like I said, we’re we’re I think this this year we’re raising $350,000 uh with the help of our corporate sponsors like Bell, Let’s Talk, and and uh and the likes and and um help enrich the lives of uh youth uh when it comes to mental health. And u you know, that’s a that’s a good thing. We truly appreciate it and we hope that you understand that all the money that is raised that goes to the foundation goes to things in our community that we all care deeply about. So, you’re with like-minded people trying to solve like-minded problems. And we really appreciate if you could tag on with us for this, but for the other things the foundation does as well. And the other reminder, which I’m sure you don’t need, is because there’s probably nobody in here who isn’t a hockey fan. I can tell you because I’m there every day. Gordon and I are there every day. I can tell you that this is a hell of a team that is just starting. So, the season is coming up very shortly and it’s going to be a good one. I guarantee it. So, we’ll see you at the rink. Thanks for coming. Hope we can see you next year. Enjoy your company. [Music] Here we go. Here we go. Sharp, boys. Sharp. Crisp. I’m coming hard, buddy. Go. Go. Go. Oh, I’m jamming you up. I’m going to be way harder on you. There we go. Yeah. You’re rounding into it, but then you’re coming back. You know what I mean? So, I’m hard on you. Yeah. Come back to it. Yeah. Yes. That’s it, boys. Crispy. Middle. Middle. Middle. Good eyes, Jack. Take it away. The most dangerous guy for go. See that? I scared him. Scared him. That’s it, boys. Crispy. That’s it, fellas. Way to sort it out. Good job, boys. Yeah, see the drill. He He took that puck and then it was on his backhand, but he got around into his forehand. The guy caught him. Like if he’s able to like grab that on his backand, he’s gone. Yeah. Oh, Ando. Ah, keep going. Go, Pety. Cut him off. Or do that or let him catch you so you can dipsy him. Come on. Sharp. Sharp. sharp strong plays like you’re in the slot instead of spinarama fire that thing. Hey hey hey and if you guys want time to make plays get the out so that those D can’t gap up. If we’re sauntering up our D have a chance to gap up and now you’re stuck at the line. So let’s get out and so we’re coming at them with speed. That was a great Sam point. Sam, you’re so intelligent. Get out. Get out. Get open. [Applause] There we go. Boys, hunt him. Hunt him. He goes. Oh, yes. Yaki. Oh, what a save. th this level it the the back pressure is going to be higher, you know, like it’s just the more you can get get your feet moving, take middle ice. Yeah. That kind of like stop. Yeah. Yeah. You’re you’re looking for options, which is great, but you see everything in front of you, so get going. Right. Yeah. Hi everybody and welcome to the Bell Center in Montreal, Quebec for the 2025 Prospect Showdown where the next wave of Ottawa Senator stars gets their first chance to show what they can do against some other upand cominging prospects from around the league. You know, uh it’s there’s a lot of nerves uh you know, running through the body. um you know really not sure what to expect you know no matter where you’re coming from with a you know junior overseas college hockey you know you’re you’re now you know putting on a an NHL jersey and uh you know not really sure you know what to expect you want to be there you want to fit in you know all those questions that you’re asking yourself of am I there can I fit in can I play at this level am I an NHL player there. Uh, you know, a lot of a lot of stuff going through your brain, you know, and you, you know, you jump on the ice and guys, you know, you adapt pretty fast. But that that’s, uh, you know, certainly a lot of those first thoughts. Bush muscles his way in there and gets pinned up in to help out as Ree comes loose for Holiday. Dished off. Yakamchuk scores. What patience from the big young defenseman Halliday again right side to the circle curls back there feeds it up for Jorian Donovan. Donovan shoots and scores. A seeing eye wrist shot from Jorian Donovan on the power play. My name is Lionus Almark and I play for Ottawa Senators. What’s your sign? I’m a I’m trying to think of it. I’m Leon. Leo. Leo. Leo. Leo. Sorry. Yeah. Leong. Looking around, seeing the guys and what they’ve accomplished with their off season or off ice sessions back home. I’m very impressed. I’m happy that guys have taken it to themsel to improve in different areas. And you can see it around. There’s a different type of swagger and like I said, excitement as well when it comes to, you know, we can do this, but it’s not going to be easy. It’s never easy in this league. It’s never easy to win. And so, it’s not going to come just because you’ve done it once doesn’t mean it’s going to happen twice automatically. No, it’s going to come down to the wire yet once again. And I think we’re in a really really good spot of uh repeating last year’s success, but also building off of it and become even a bigger force in this league this season. Here we go. We got Juice Dutla, my teammate. Got a pretty sick card as well. Compositions uh with some uh information on the back here. Extending his point streak to 16 points of 11 games at a boy Timmy. know you had it in you. Great job there. Actually pretty sick card. I might actually snag that for myself later. Hey buddy, nice to see you. This is my my social media guy, you know. I can see. Yeah, they just get younger and younger, huh? Exactly right. They got to start uh at this age. Perfect. Oh, there it is. That’s good. Yeah. Well, I don’t really have I have one that is quite new and that’s Sprinkles and it came from my fellow teammates in Ottawa after we went on a road trip and it turned out or I told them that I’m a huge fan of, you know, going on the road and you’re having a fica as we say in Sweden. You go out, grab a coffee and a little bit of pastry and just enjoying life in general. And there was a place in Washington that’s called Sprinkles. And I just said that they asked me where I was going because I was walking around. I said, “Hey, I’m going to Sprinkles.” And with nicknames, you just need one little instance h to catch on. And there you go. I’m Mark Damontis. I’m a member of Canada’s national blind hockey team. Also the 2024 NHL reward recipient. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Have you ever heard of blind hockey? I’ve seen it. I’ve heard about it. Fantastic. So, have you ever felt one of these? This is a blind hockey puck. Talk like a cowbell. You think it can stop that? If it can stop this. Yeah, but not with my blindfold. [Music] There you go. There more targets. There’s four targets. You’ve hit three. Oh, four. You sure you’re goalie? Hey. Well, that’s that’s awful because that’s minus 10. Are you uh are you um afraid of this or not afraid, but is this table valuable for you guys? I would prefer not to destroy anything. Okay, perfect. Looks so much more professional than whatever I’ve worked with before. So, like it’s pretty cool. Tell tell everyone. Yeah. Yeah. [Applause] Cool. Suspense. Suspense. Romance. Romance. And drama. And drama. So much drama. So much drama. I love the drama. I love the drama. I live for the drama. I live for the drama. Pure entertainment. Pure entertainment. All the thrillers. All the thrillers. It’s showtime. It’s showtime, baby. The feeling is great. I mean, everybody showed up early and everybody showed up ready to go and in great shape. So, um, but I mean, at the end of the day, the standard for us is not to make playoffs every year. And and and don’t get me wrong, it’s not going to get any easier year after year. Our division’s very uh shrung and um I mean, every team is competitive. Every a lot of the teams got better uh over the summer. So, I mean, the standard for us is is coming back to camp. And obviously it’s always great to come back and have the same kind of guys always around and not many changes, but um the standard will be to push each other and make sure that uh we didn’t get comfortable with what happened last year. It’s about setting a new standard for this season and um building and obviously the this the big step that we have is uh having the same group is is we can start ahead than where we started last year with the coaching staff. But um but not only that is keep on pushing each other every day to make sure when the season starts we’re there and we’re ready to go. I think we’re all excited. I think just getting a little bit of taste of playoffs last year kind of, you know, excited everybody and uh I think everybody had a big summer just, you know, reaching toward our towards our end goal. Um but yeah, things do definitely feel a little bit different this year. Um, I think everybody’s got a little more pep in their step and uh just that anxiety and excitement to to get back playing games. Yeah. Oh, I’m like holding my breath. Yeah, perfect. Love it. My favorite one you had last year was Oh, yeah. I can do that one. As long as you smile, you’re good. If you want to smile, I’m going to make you do it again. No. All right. Smile with teeth or just like I don’t smile with teeth. So, I’ll just smile. You can smile. Do you want to do a little thumbs up? Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. That’s the hardest smile you’ll get out of me all You know what? That was the best I could have. You’re so All righty. God, I shouldn’t have tied my skates a little tighter. It’s fun. It’s like picture day, first day of school. You know, you got to wear your best outfit and guys actually have to do their hair for once. So, it’s nice. I need to tie my skates tighter. Do I skate towards it? Love it. This one looks sick. Have your uh your chin like just tucked a little bit. Yeah, perfect. Uh do I like naturally go like this? Like everyone’s telling me to tuck my chin like I’m like so like cuz I got the light right above it like Yeah. Okay. It’s not you, it’s me. That was good. That was good. I don’t know if you don’t know if you’ll use it. Thanks, buddy. No, thank you. So, for this one, I’m going to start here. You’re just following your eyes. Okay. I feel like it’s better we did it today cuz I feel like the very first day of camp like Wednesday can just be so much going on like fitness testing this and then like more media. So well done to this to the planning committee. Quite frankly what I feel is that it’s just a it’s a different feel. It’s you know we’ve accomplished what we’ve wanted to but know with us getting better as individuals as a team that just grows our expectations and our standard. So, um, you know, expect it to be an even harder camp and and I think that’s what we want as a group to, uh, to get better. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I think there’s there’s a confidence within our group now that we know we can be a really good team and, uh, you know, that we can Yeah, we can we can do it. So, um, yeah, I think everyone’s here really excited to get going. Everyone came a couple weeks before camp to just kind of start working out together, going on the ice together. And, you know, obviously I I got to to be able to be a part of that and to be here for a couple weeks with the guys and I think we’re all motivated and we want to do better than what they did last year. So, you know, I’m we’re also really excited and I’m also really excited to be part of this team to, you know, have a successful year. Let go one more time. Okay. All right. Good. One more time. Yeah. Keep going. Keep going. Love it. You won’t have to redo it unless you don’t smile. If you don’t smile, you have to do it again. So, I have to smile. So, you have to smile. I got you. Yeah. I think, you know, even just going into last year, I think there was definitely a certain buzz. You know, we picked up a couple players and uh you know, we knew we were going to be good and I think it’s kind of a sim similar feeling this year. Uh we’ve had that playoff experience. Uh so, now we just kind of got to do our job and kind of do it again. I don’t know. Sorry. That’s my fault. I’m wondering the team photographer. Been here for a long time. You for a long time. So you Yeah, I’ve been around for a long time. You said you want me like in the face off position or No, just like Yeah. So we’ve got to jump back straight angle. Angle angle. Okay. Just kind of like one hand look off to the side. Get the crab going. There you go. Cool. You’re all good. All right. Good job. Nice. Quick and efficient. I like it. Very efficient. Thanks, guys. Bringing back a pretty similar group with uh with some additions. I think it’s it’s exciting for for the guys. And I know all the guys are eager to get going. So, uh it’ll be fun to get going here tomorrow on the ice. Just to start the season and being back with the fans and everything they gave us all year last year in the playoff run. I mean, the support was incredible. The uh the vibe in the entire city was completely different. It was great. So, um I think we’re just getting ready to to get things going and rolling again and start season the way we uh finished it last year and we build on something and and it’s getting back to that right from the get- go. I want to welcome everybody back to uh officially get this started in what I think is an incredible opportunity for this group. And I’ll get into that as well and Travis will touch on it. But um what I want to talk to you guys a little bit about just a little reminder and a little point of reflection is the evolution of this group which I think is something to be proud of. We have gained the respect of opponents, coaches, and managers in this league. Um we brought pride back to being an Ottawa Senator. How did we do that? Team first. You guys play for one another. special to watch. Commitment. You guys play the right way all the time. And competitiveness and I hear it all the time from Greener, but we want to be a hard team to play against. And you guys, you guys brought that. That’s the first step. Travis will talk a little bit more about what it is. We call it the fabric of a senator. It’s different and it’s not for everybody. You just don’t get to be here. We work harder and we care more. And credit to the players and the coaches. You guys have developed that culture. It’s an exciting day in the NHL today. Not just for you guys, for management, coaching staff, uh, everyone that works in the building. Uh, don’t want to take up a lot of time today, but I do want to talk about training camp a little bit. Uh, first things, we don’t want to waste days, okay? We’re going to go through a lot of different things, details, structure, conditioning. So, let’s make sure we’re ready every day when we get to the rink. Physically, I know you’re also ready, but I I want you to be mentally prepared for it. All right? Not just prepared mentally, but embrace it. Competition in camp, you got a lot of good players. It’s going to be competition for jobs. It’s going to be competition for ice time. And I want to make sure it’s not me, the coaching staff, the management that’s going to decide who’s on the team, who’s playing more, how many minutes you’re playing. It’s everyone in the room. And it’s very simple. Play well, play more. The fabric of a senator, which Steve talked about. This this defines us. All right. The identity of our team, work ethic, ultra competitive, team first, embracing tough moments, pressure-filled moments, paying a price. There’s always a price to pay to win. Doesn’t come easy. Passion for the game. We want players that have enthusiasm. They love coming to the rink. They love playing the game of hockey. They love it when it’s hard. They love it when it’s not. Self-starters. All right. Initiators. We want people that go after things. They’re aggressive. Win the day mentality. We’ve talked a lot about that over the last year. And we want guys that are confidence. And we want it all in our group. We want all this and more. And give our team credit. I thought we committed to this last year. All right. We committed to the day-to-day process. We had that win the day, win every day when we come to the rink mentality. and we had buy in and and you put in the work because it’s not easy. It’s not a given that we just come back and make the playoffs. It’s not easy to be a contender. So, how do we do it? We challenged every guy in our team last year to come back a better player. And I know to a man they put in the work. I know our team or organization works hard. Whether you’re a younger player trying to get better, which you will with age, you got to put the work in to get better. Whether you’re an older player on the team, these guys put the work in to improve. I know that. We challenged them. They did it. We took a step last year. We became a team that’s harder to play against. We’ve got to take another one.

Teamwork. Commitment. Competitiveness. Three crucial elements in the fabric of a Senator. On the ice and off that fabric is something that is worn proudly at Canadian Tire Centre. From the ice installation to Training Camp and everything in between check out what it takes to where the Sens shield in the latest Breakaway presented by Bell.