1,000 GAMES OF TOIL, TROUBLE
‘To play for one team, the style (Neil) played, you’ll never see that again’
The Chris Neil theme was inescapable.
Towels to honour his 1,000th game as an Ottawa Senators player were everywhere. Front teeth were optional.
In the warm-up, all the Senators came out with the name Neil on the back of the ubiquitous No. 25 jersey — a scary sight.
Even the anthem ceremony had a Neil flavour. His sons — Cole, 7 and Finn, 5 — skated with the team flags before Neil’s wife, Caitlin, and their daughter, Hailey, 9, joined the man of the hour for a series of presentations.
The highlight came with the unveiling of the symbolic silver stick, presented to Neil by Ottawa’s previous 1,000-game men, Daniel Alfredsson and Chris Phillips.
“Welcome to the club,” Alfredsson said.
A creative Tony Harris painting featured multiple images of Neil in full flight — and full fight.
The presence of Hailey Neil reminded us of one of her dad’s greatest moments as a Senators winger. Late on a Friday night — June 1, 2007 — Hailey came into this world. The next night, Neil scored a playoff goal in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final against the Anaheim Ducks. It would be the Senators’ lone victory of the series and Neil dedicated the goal to his daughter.
On Wednesday, Neil felt as if his entire family was with him, including his late mother, Bonnie, who died in a car crash 11 years ago.
“She’d be extremely proud,” Neil said, referring to his milestone honour. “She is seeing it. She is. That was a tragedy that was a tough part of my career. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think about her. As time passes it gets easier, but I know she’s going to be in the building somewhere.”
This was Neil’s first home game after reaching the 1,000-game mark on Saturday in Los Angeles. Jim Gregory represented the NHL, and was part of a ceremony that included former Senators GM Bryan Murray, new GM Pierre Dorion and director of player development Randy Lee. Neil men, all of them.
Scoreboard tribute videos came in from old pals Mike Fisher and Wade Redden.
His home region was also on board, including those carting a “Flesherton Proud” sign for the Flesherton, Ont., native. MP Larry Miller, who represents Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, wore a Chris Neil jersey in the House of Commons Wednesday and read a statement of congratulations.
He is surely the most popular player to score 112 goals in a career. Neil’s honest, blue-collar toil every night has endeared him to the fan base in Ottawa far more than statistics ever could. The one stat he’s best known for: the penalty total of roughly 2,500 minutes.
Incredibly, Neil has never been suspended, proof of the many ways he has adapted over the years to changes in rules and game trends.
Hundreds of other bottom line grinders have come and gone while Neil has soldiered on to four figures worth of NHL games.
“To play for one team, the style he played, you’ll never see that again,” says former Senators winger Shean Donovan, now a player development coach. “That’s why it’s so special.”
In an era bidding farewell to one-dimensional fighters, Neil found a way to stay relevant, improving his skating and losing 15 pounds to be fitter and faster. Lighter or not, he can still terrify young prospects who come to Ottawa and confront the man who fought all the heavyweights of yesterday, back when they roamed the NHL.
“They’re afraid of him,” Donovan says of the new rookies. “He’s fought all those tough guys. The dinosaurs. Brashear, Domi, all those guys.”
Developmental staff only need put a prospect in an off-season weight room, where Neil is bound to be, to see the standard expected.
Neil is loving it all, this unexpected extended run.
“When you first start, you just try to get 200 (games) for your half pension and 400 for your full pension,” Neil says. “You’re excited to get the first game. Before you knew it, 100, 400, 600. You remember all of them. It seems like yesterday I started playing and now it’s a thousand games later.”
NO-SPITTER
Hang around the game long enough and old enemies become friends. Darcy Tucker, the Maple Leafs villain from so many Battle of Ontario skirmishes more than a decade ago, was among those who praised Neil on Twitter, and then on TSN 1200 Wednesday afternoon.
Both Neil and Tucker admit there was no spitting incident back in 2003, when Tucker flew into the Ottawa bench like a mad man. Wily Toronto head coach Pat Quinn invented the story to protect his player from a doubledigit suspension. As it was, Tucker still got five games for leaping into the Senators bench and getting pounded on. Ah, the good old days. “I talk about that one all the time,” Neil says. “That was fun.”
Neil still has fun every day, which has been the key to it all. Donovan figures Neil would be back on the ice within three days after the end of a long NHL season, even a season with spring playoffs. The man loves hockey.