It has been 12 years since the best players in the National Hockey League suited up at the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
Fans of the Ottawa Senators will be holding their breath during the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina, Italy, hoping that all of the club\u2019s six participants<\/a> will return home safely and healthy with the tournament officially having started on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Sitting six points out of the final wild-card spot in the East<\/a> with the National Hockey League schedule on hold until Feb. 26, the Senators will need all hands on deck in the final 25 games of the regular season to make the playoffs for a second straight spring.<\/p>\n The task isn\u2019t impossible, but you\u2019ll have to excuse some of the faithful if they\u2019re concerned that the club\u2019s participants \u2014 Brady Tkachuk, Jake Sanderson, Tim Stutzle, Lars Eller, Mads Sogaard and Nikolas Matinpalo \u2014 may get injured during the Games.<\/p>\n The NHL Players\u2019 Association pushed for participation in the Olympics in the most recent negotiation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Senators owner Michael Andlauer supports player participation and the fans want to see best-on-best.<\/p>\n The last time NHL players suited up at the Olympics was in 2014 in Sochi, Russia. We got a glimpse at the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal and Boston at how good the hockey can be, but it also ended with Tkachuk missing some games with the Senators.<\/p>\n The previous time the Games were in Italy was in 2006 \u2014 and that left fans of the Senators with a sour taste in their mouths.<\/p>\n It has been two decades<\/p>\n Twenty years ago, I was sitting in the media room in the bowels of the Palasport Olimpico in Turin, Italy, furiously typing up a game-over column from Team Canada\u2019s 7-2 victory over the host Team Italy when something caught our attention on the television nearby.<\/p>\n While most people were working in the press tribune in the stands to get a first-hand look at Germany facing the Czech Republic, retired Ottawa Citizen columnist Wayne Scanlan and I opted for the quiet of the media room in the rink to do our work.<\/p>\n We both looked up at the monitor as Dominik Hasek left the net. Signed to a one-year, $2-million US deal by the Senators before the start of the 2005-06 campaign, the 39-year-old Hasek went down to make a save early in the first period and headed for the exit on Feb. 15, 2006.<\/p>\n Back then, we were competitors, but we were always \u2014 and remain \u2014 friends. In those days, there was no social media to send out the information immediately.<\/p>\n Our first instinct was to head to the Mixed Zone. That\u2019s an area where the participants meet with the crowds of media during the Games and, in those days, the players couldn\u2019t get to the dressing rooms without walking through that area.<\/p>\n By the time we got out there, one of the broadcasters for the CBC indicated to us that Hasek had already passed through the area. Our cellphones were starting to ring off the hook as we both tried to gather more information about exactly what happened.<\/p>\n Naturally, I ignored the calls from my bosses \u2014 also known as the Senators\u2019 fans back home \u2014 but immediately took the one from late Ottawa general manager John Muckler, who was trying desperately to get more information on Hasek\u2019s status.<\/p>\n He had already reached out to the club\u2019s longtime athletic therapist, Gerry Townend, who was there with the Canadian team, and Dr. Mark Aubry, who was with the International Ice Hockey Federation, and Muckler was waiting on a response from both.<\/p>\n You could tell from listening to Muckler\u2019s voice that his dreams of winning a Stanley Cup with The Dominator were flashing before his eyes, but by all accounts, this wasn\u2019t anything serious.<\/p>\n The next day<\/p>\n Though we were both there for our respective \u201cchains\u201d of newspapers and our priority was to cover Team Canada, Scanlan and I both knew where our bread was buttered in Ottawa, so we ventured over to where Team Czech was holding its practice.<\/p>\n Since nothing in Turin was organized, we had learned to use the streetcar and public transit system pretty well. We figured out a way to get to where the Czechs were scheduled to skate early that day and landed there with time to spare.<\/p>\n There was no sign of Hasek on the ice and, as I can recall, there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of an update given by Czech officials. He was listed as day-to-day; he just wouldn\u2019t be on the ice today. Well, by the end of the day, Muckler and the Senators had him on a flight back to Ottawa.<\/p>\n Since there was no such thing as text messaging in those days, I\u2019d already exchanged emails with the late Senators owner, Eugene Melnyk, and spoken with former club president Roy Mlakar, by phone, because they were both keenly interested.<\/p>\n By that point, Ottawa\u2019s medical staff had played a role because even if the injury wasn\u2019t serious, they didn\u2019t want to take any chances with Hasek risking any further injury by playing for his country. He had led the Czechs to a gold medal in 1998 in Nagano<\/a>.<\/p>\n It seems to me that Scanlan and I, who liked having a beer and dinner at a pasta place across the street from the rink, were relieved that Hasek had gone home because then it became somebody else\u2019s headache to deal with and we could go back to covering the Games.<\/p>\n The aftermath<\/p>\n The Senators were confident when they returned to work in late February that Hasek would be back sooner rather than later from what was being called \u201can adductor\u201d muscle ailment.<\/p>\n The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. Hasek was often asked when he might play again and his stock response was the now-famous \u201cMaybe Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n Every Friday came and went.<\/p>\n At one point, the Ottawa Sun reported that Hasek was in fact \u201cdone for the season,\u201d which caused Muckler to call a snap press conference on a Saturday morning at the rink with Hasek sitting beside him to support the fact he\u2019d play again.<\/p>\n Everybody left the room with the feeling that someone had forgotten to give Hasek \u201cthe memo he was supposed to play again\u201d because that possibility seemed even bleaker at that point.<\/p>\n The late Ray Emery carried the ball down the stretch for the Senators with a lineup that featured Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, Martin Havlat, Wade Redden, Zdeno Chara, Mike Fisher, Chris Phillips and Chris Neil.<\/p>\n Though the Senators went to the Stanley Cup final in 2007, many would argue the best team ever assembled was the 2005-06 team that still had Chara on the roster.<\/p>\n The Senators were confident they\u2019d have Hasek back at some point in the playoffs that spring. With Emery in the net, they easily got by the Tampa Bay Lightning in Round 1 with a five-game series win.<\/p>\n Preparing to face the Buffalo Sabres in Round 2, there was still some sense that Hasek might return.<\/p>\n Though Hasek took part in practice regularly, he claimed he was never strong enough to return and it was the morning of Game 4 against the Buffalo Sabres in Round 2 that sealed his fate with the Senators.<\/p>\n After taking part in the morning skate in Buffalo with Ottawa trailing 3-0, the Senators were hopeful Hasek would go back in the net in place of a struggling Ray Emery.<\/p>\n Alfredsson, along with Havlat and Redden, tried to convince Hasek before Game 4 at lunch at a Buffalo hotel to give it a try.<\/p>\n Hasek told TSN\u2019s Off the Record that spring he told his teammates he wouldn\u2019t \u201ccheat them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI could stand in the net, but we\u2019ll lose 6-2,\u201d Hasek told Michael Lansdberg. \u201cI walked away from the table.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senators lost in Game 5.<\/p>\n