Champion is an overused word, particularly when a reasonably good player, or a journeyman, retires. It’s thrown around here and there when not always warranted and so loses a little of its lustre. Which is a shame when it comes time to farewell a player who, in every sense of the world, is a champion.
Earlier this week the hockey world said goodbye to one of its favourite sons – at least from on-ice activities – as one of the many great Swedish players to enter the National Hockey League in the last twenty or so years bid us farewell. Only, Daniel Alfredsson, a Swede whose ability on the ice was matched only by his attitude off it, didn’t make his name with the Detroit Red Wings, rather, with the Ottawa Senators.
Yes, there was that lone season in Detroit, with the Zetterberg’s and Kronwall’s of the world, chasing a Stanley Cup title that had eluded him during a glittering career with Ottawa, one that had netted him just about every other honour the game can bestow upon a player, but, make no mistake, Alfie is, was and will always be remembered as a Senator. More correctly, as team owner Eugene Melnyk said, Alfredsson is the greatest Ottawa Senator of all time.
Daniel Alfredsson was to Ottawa what Nicklas Lidstrom was to Detroit. And perhaps more important. Detroit, of course, had it’s fair share of champions over a sustained run of success that, to a certain degree, continues today.
Ottawa, on the other hand, has been starved of championship success. The current iteration of the Senators hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since the team’s inception in 1992, and the old Senators, one of the original National Hockey League squads, won eleven Stanley Cup titles but none since 1927.
The Ottawa Senators, as they exist, are twenty-two years old. Alfredsson has been there for seventeen of those years, and thirteen as captain. There are few men who are more tied to a franchise than Alfredsson is to the Senators. Mention the team’s name to any hockey fan and, more likely than not, the first name they’ll shoot back at you is Alfredsson – or Alfie, anyway.
Similarly, at Ottawa Senators home games, the percentage of fans wearing Alfredsson jerseys is easily comparable to the percentage of those who wear Ovechkin’s number in Washington or Crosby’s in Pittsburgh. Just like Sid the Kid and the Great Eight in their respective cities, Daniel Alfredsson was the beloved face of the Ottawa franchise.
And with good reason, for Alfredsson tops franchise records in just about every category that’s worth anything: goals (426), assists (682), points (1108) and games played (1,178). He led the Senators to the Stanley Cup Final in 2007, helped them win a President’s Trophy in the 2002-03 season and was won the Calder Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s rookie of the year, way back in 1995-96. In 2010, he became only the seventy-fifth player in League history to score 1000 career points.
He played in the NHL All Star Game on six occasions, won the prestigious Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2013, selected by the great Edmonton Oiler/New York Ranger, and awarded yearly to the League’s most prolific player with regard to off-ice charity work and community service. He won a similar award, the King Clancy Memorial Trophy – voted upon by a special panel compromised of members of the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association and the NHL Broadcaster’s Association – in 2012.
Away from the NHL, Alfredsson has represented Sweden at fourteen different international tournaments, including the victorious 2006 Winter Olympic campaign, where the Swedes won gold in Torino. Alfie was an associate captain during that tournament, recording 5 goals and 5 assists throughout. The Gold medal victory over their arch rivals from Finland will surely rank as one of the greatest moments in a career littered with them.
Of course, Alfie will be best remembered for so many great years in Ottawa, and despite not being able to deliver a Stanley Cup title to the hockey-mad capital of a hockey-mad country, it’s unlikely that there will be another Senator who will ever come close to matching Alfredsson’s records, let alone his stature in the city.
There were some prickly moments during the North American summer of 2013, when Alfredsson departed the only NHL team he had ever known to add another name to the Swedish Connection in Detroit – Zetterberg, Kronwall, Franzen etc. – where he had 18 goals and 31 assists as a Red Wing, enough to earn him a tie for team lead in points come the end of an season in Motown where every man and his dog seemed to be injured at one time or another.
Alfredsson might’ve suited up for another year in the Motor City had it not been for his back, and the twin setbacks – the first just before training camp, and the second closer to the start of the regular season – and as the days and weeks slipped by, games ticking off and passing him by, it became apparent to Alfredsson that he just couldn’t get himself healthy enough to withstand the intense rigours of a National Hockey League season.
So, Daniel Alfredsson announced his retirement and, like so many other things in his career, he did it the right way, signing a one-day contract with Ottawa – and, thanks in no small part to the Detroit Red Wings front office – that allowed him to skate in full uniform on the ice, wearing his #11 jersey, fighting back tears, as he mingled with his old Senators teammates, including his protégé, the hulking Swede, Erik Karlsson.
I think all hockey fans are better off for having watched those wonderful moments in the Canadian Tire Centre ahead of the Senators’ tilt with the Islanders. Seeing the emotion on Alfie’s face showed us all just how much the franchise meant to him, and how much it will continue to mean to him. To hear U2’s “Beautiful Day” reverberate through the arena was perfect. Just perfect. Whatever ill will might’ve existed between the Ottawa Senators and Daniel Alfredsson died in that moment. It was a perfect way to send off a player whose contributions to the game of hockey will not soon be forgotten.
Thanks for the memories, Alfie!
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