Team takes on French flavour
When the recent NHL draft was over, Senators assistant general manager Pierre Dorion couldn’t resist teasing one of the French writers who covers the team.
“That’s it,” Dorion said. “We’re not drafting any more French players.”
Dorion was kidding of course. There is no quota when it comes to players from Quebec, but there was no denying the francophone flavour of Ottawa’s 2015 entry draft. The Senators had just selected seven players, three from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League: two francophone players in the first two rounds (forwards Thomas Chabot of Ste-Marie-de-Beauce and Gabriel Gagné of St-Adele) and another second-round pick, centre Filip Chlapik of the Czech Republic, out of QMJHL Charlottetown.
In the past five years, the Senators have established a pattern of drafting at least one player a year from the Quebec League, and if they hail from nearby Gatineau or played for the Gatineau Olympiques, so much the better.
“Sometimes it’s just the process, the cycle of the Quebec League having some drafts that are stronger than others and this year was that case,” Dorion says.
Ottawa’s recent Q-heavy draft meshes nicely with an organizational plan to make some inroads into a region that has always been Montreal Canadiens territory.
“We all know Gatineau has a core of more Canadiens fans than Senators fans,” Dorion says. “But as the years have gone on, we’re slowly converting them.”
If there is a flag-bearer for the quest to conquer Gatineau, it is centre Jean- Gabriel Pageau (rhymes with Gatineau), one of the hardest-working players in the NHL. Pageau, 22, grew up on Gatineau rinks, and was a star for the Olympiques before being drafted by Ottawa in the fourth round of the 2011 draft.
Undersized but fearless, Pageau just earned his first oneway NHL contract, a two-year deal, after helping provide the spark in Ottawa’s unexpected late surge to a playoff spot.
Pageau had already won fan hearts in the area. In a single playoff game against the Canadiens, Pageau – who had played just nine regular season games in 2012-13 — earned a place in Senators franchise lore, scoring a Game 3 hat trick as the Senators went on to win a 2013 quarterfinal series against Montreal. Afterward, then-head coach Paul MacLean joked that Gatineau bridges would be renamed in Pageau’s honour.
That hat trick, and the first playoff series victory by a modern era Senators team against an Original Six franchise, was significant in Ottawa and Gatineau. The Canadiens gained a measure of revenge by winning a playoff series over Ottawa this past spring.
“The rivalry has built between us and Montreal, so to have additional French players on our side only helps,” Dorion says. “You look at a Pageau, what he did against Montreal ... that kind of put him on the map. And I think a lot of his friends have converted from being Montreal Canadiens fans to Ottawa Senators fans.
“People in Gatineau see one of their own having success,” Dorion adds. “And he’s more of a blue collar guy, I think he represents the Gatineau area very well.”
An Ottawa room that was once lean on French content, is today more than ready to accept media from Gatineau and Montreal, as Pageau, winger Alex Chiasson of Montreal and Ottawa’s bilingual defenceman, Marc Methot, can address scrums in both official languages. And there are plenty more French-Canadian players in the system.
LOCAL BOYS
On the management rosters of NHL teams, none has more local flavour than the Senators. GM Bryan Murray is from nearby Shawville, Quebec. Dorion grew up in suburban Orléans, with its strong French presence. AGM Randy Lee is an Ottawa guy.
Unlike previous managements that sometimes avoided drafting and developing local talent, Murray’s administration is unabashedly local. They draft local, they trade for players from the region, like Methot, acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The general philosophy: if two players are rated more or less equal, Ottawa will select the player from the area, whether he is north or south of the Ottawa River.
“I think there’s a certain pride of growing up in the area, playing for the team most of the kids cheer for growing up,” Dorion says.
Defenceman Cody Ceci is a prime example. As a boy in Orléans, he was a huge Senators fan, graduating to the local OHL team, the Ottawa 67’s. At the time he was drafted by the Senators, 15th overall in 2012, Ceci still had a Senators clock in his bedroom and Sens posters on his bedroom wall.
There is a practical side to favouring local talent. Because the players already live here, they are close to the training centre run by Senators strength coach Chris Schwarz, and can be quickly immersed in team philosophies. Buying local — as is the foodie trend — extends to the club’s eyes in the rinks.
“I always tell our scouts to pay a bit more attention to the local guy, whether from the Ontario side or the Gatineau side,” Dorion says.
The longtime scout in Dorion detects a shift in fan interest in Gatineau, when he drops by to watch the Olympiques.
“I see guys (Habs fans) that were there 20 years ago when I worked for Montreal,” Dorion says. “They start talking up the Sens, and I get the sense they’ve become Sens fans. I can tell they have a vested interest in what the Senators are doing compared to 10, 15 years ago.”