As part of owner Michael Andlauer's commitment to improving relations with fans in La Belle Province, the Senators will play an intrasquad game at the Slush Puppie Center Arena in Gatineau on Saturday morning.
Faceoff time is 11 am when Team Black takes on Team White (rosters TBA). There will be a team practice (10 am) before the game and another afterward.
The day starts at 8 am with the players' arrival on the red carpet, allowing fans to get photos and autographs. Afterward, families can enjoy activities like face painting, inflatables and more.
The day's schedule reads like Gatineau's personal version of Fan Fest, which is held outside the CTC every year during camp.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children. The proceeds will be donated to the Gatineau Social Pediatrics Center. Parking will be available in front of the arena, free of charge for three hours, and then $1 for each additional 30 minutes.
It's worth noting that it's obviously not the first time the Sens have tried to promote their product to Gatineau. It's a valuable potential market for the Senators and always has been. Gatineau is the fourth largest city in Quebec with a population of almost 300,000 people and it's a hockey hotbed.
Unfortunately for the Sens, it bleeds Montreal Canadiens' red and has for 100 years.
Former GM Pierre Dorion is fluently bilingual and understood both the challenges and the potential of that market. So scheduling Ottawa intrasquad games isn't unprecedented on the Quebec side, but they were sporadic enough to have little effect.
In the early 2000s, the Sens also tried a four-team rookie tournament each fall at the Bob Guertin Arena in Gatineau. The event was always lively, sometimes too lively, with a lot of fights and long-shot prospects taking runs at the top ones. It didn't last.
It's clear that Gatineau's hockey fans have always mattered to the Sens, but in the past, the club just hasn't done enough (or invested enough) to get their attention or make the feel wanted.
With events like these, combined with the potential new arena closer to downtown, we'll see now if that's about to change.