Sens agree calling off game necessary

Team was in Boston during bomb attack

The Ottawa Senators spent much of their time Tuesday morning rehashing Monday’s tragedy in Boston, the cancellation of their game against the Bruins and their late return to Ottawa after a delay at Logan Airport.

It was such an emotional day that they wondered if they would have even had the energy to play the game, had it not been postponed.

“I think it would have been impossible, so the right decision was made by everyone involved,” said MacLean. “The right decision was made, and it was made early, so that there would be no question about it.”

Guillaume Latendresse said “it would have been disrespectful if we played.”

MacLean said he didn’t feel nervous or anxious about his safety, though he was obviously concerned about what had happened and whether it had the potential to escalate and become worse.

But he said NHL security kept the team well informed and let them know that things were under control.

Marc Methot said it was a weird feeling for the players. They’d never been through anything like that before. While his family was trying to get in touch with him to see if he was OK, he was trying to let friends know, through Facebook and Twitter, that he was fine.

“It’s one of those things you don’t know how to handle it,” he said. “It’s an extreme situation. But we were together (as a team) the whole time, and that was all that mattered.

“It was the right call (to cancel the game).

“It was such a strange circumstance, that weird feeling you have in your stomach knowing that it happened maybe five minutes away from the hotel, and then the unknown, the potential that other persons were out there.

“I don’t think a lot of us were very comfortable with the idea of having 18,000 people filing into a building, so I thought it was the right decision.”

The National Hockey League announced Tuesday that the game will be played on Apr. 28 at 7 p.m. in Boston.

Meanwhile, the Senators organization planned to heighten security at Tuesday night’s contest at Scotiabank Place against the Carolina Hurricanes.

All bags were to be searched at the door, with any bag larger than a purse banned from the building. More security staff were assigned to the game than usual, and metal detector screenings were ramped up, too.