It may be the one time in his National Hockey League career that Brady Tkachuk put himself in a sticky situation.
The Ottawa Senators captain can now laugh about a prank that he tried to pull on alternate captain Claude Giroux a couple of years ago that went terribly wrong, but it was no laughing matter at the time.
In his latest book, Certified Beauties, which went on sale Tuesday, TSN’s James Duthie, an Ottawa native, revealed a story about the time Tkachuk tried to get payback on the veteran Giroux by cutting his sticks before a game against the St. Louis Blues a couple of years ago.
A video trailer to promote the new book was posted on Duthie’s social media accounts on Wednesday, which showed Giroux breaking his stick trying to leave the Ottawa zone against the Blues and then having his new one break on the same shift.
“Claude Giroux needs some new twigs,” legendary TSN play-by-play broadcaster Gord Miller said in a highlight from the game shown in the trailer.
“He’s going to grab a new stick, bat one out of the air in the neutral zone and break it again,” added former NHL goalie Jamie McLennan, a colour analyst on TSN’s regional broadcast of Senators games.
The second time it happened was the moment that Tkachuk realized that Giroux was using a batch of three sticks that had been intentionally cut, so that they’d jokingly break on him during the morning skate.
Unfortunately, Tkachuk had other things on his mind that day and completely forgot to make sure the sticks were changed out before the puck was dropped that night at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Initially, an upset Giroux thought it was St. Louis blueliner Brayden Schenn, a former teammate from the Philadelphia Flyers, who had cut the sticks intentionally.
“Well, when it happened, I thought it was the other team. I remember we were playing St Louis and I thought it was Brayden Schenn. I just started yelling at him, thinking it was him,” Giroux said with a smile, before the Senators face the Flyers on Thursday night at home.
By that point, Tkachuk already had told the club’s equipment managers — John Forget, Ian Cox, Alex Menezes and Bram Karp — to remove Giroux’s third stick from the rack or it would happen again.
“Brady was beside me on the bench when I was yelling (at Schenn) and he told me it was him. I didn’t believe him at the time,” Giroux recalled. “Let’s just say I wasn’t too happy about it for a little bit, but a few months later we were able to laugh about it.”
Hijinks in the locker room are something that are typical in every NHL city and, oftentimes, Giroux is the culprit behind the prank and not the one getting pranked.
Tkachuk, who is out for six to eight weeks after thumb surgery, was asked about the incident by TSN’s Claire Hanna on Wednesday and recalled that Giroux wasn’t pleased with his antics.
“I got the silent treatment,” Tkachuk said. “I’m very lucky that we won that game because after the first period, I tried talking to him and it was like I was invisible.
“It was after that game, and after that, we laughed about it. But that’s something that completely went over my head and I totally forgot about it. Once it happened, I was like ‘Peter Panic’ and thinking ‘Oof, I’m going to be in some trouble after this one.’
“It’s a good story and something we still laugh about.”
Tkachuk noted that Giroux hasn’t forgotten what happened and is determined to make him pay one day.
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As someone who has pulled a few of these, we asked Giroux if this was the best prank ever played on him or the worst? He looked at it two ways.
“Well, it’s a good prank, but gone wrong, obviously,” Giroux said. “He was trying to get me for practice, so he cut my sticks, and then he forgot about it, and then went on to the game.
“And, he wouldn’t do that for a game because that’s not really a funny prank, but during practice, it would have been hilarious.”
Duthie’s book sounds like it’s an entertaining read. He was in town for the game against the Flyers to sell copies at the rink and sign some for the fans who wanted to purchase it.
It also features the back story on the night that former Sabres goaltender Martin Biron dropped the gloves with late Ottawa goalie Ray Emery during the famous brawl in Buffalo on Feb. 22, 2007.