ALFREDSSON DESERVES KEY TO CITY

Daniel Alfredsson was the key to the Ottawa Senators’ success for many years, so it’s fitting that the team’s former captain received the key to the city in a ceremony Thursday night.

With all due respect to the mayors and prime ministers who’ve called Ottawa home over the years, for many, Alfredsson was, and remains, the face of the capital.

He led the transformation of a moribund National Hockey League franchise mired the depths of its embarrassing expansion years — a hockey punchline, really — into a President’s Trophy winner.

Alfredsson also established, with a mix of hard work and irreverence (remember the Mats Sundin stick toss?), a unique identity for a team that had developed a serious inferiority complex following several years of playoff futility imposed by the hated Toronto Maple Leafs.

As the Leafs slid into a torpor that has yet to lift, it was Alfredsson who scored the overtime goal that sent the Senators to the Cup final in 2007. He also served as a mentor to many of the young players who are now making an exciting, if improbable, playoff push.

A stirring ceremony at the Canadian Tire Centre earlier this season that saw Alfredsson retire as a Senator repaired much of the damage caused by an unfortunate contract squabble near the end of his career, and his promise that the sendoff wasn’t goodbye, but “à bientôt,” hinted at a move home to Ottawa from Detroit at some point in the near future.

The key to the city is about more than his hockey legacy, however.

Before there was Bell Let’s Talk, there was You Know Who I Am, the mental health awareness campaign run by The Royal in Ottawa, for which Alfredsson served as the public face.

His decision to sign on as a spokesman came at a time when few prominent people were willing to talk about a very tough subject.

As Citizen columnist and Royal volunteer Mark Sutcliffe recently put it, “we could divide the timeline of mental health awareness in Ottawa into B.C. and A.D.: Before Captain and After Daniel. Many of the Royal’s recent successes and significant milestones can be traced back to the Alfredsson Effect.”

Alfredsson has also done work for the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, not to mention the countless hospital visits and other community events that have lifted citizens’ spirits across the city.

Congratulations on a great honour, Daniel Alfredsson. Well deserved.