Hail King Karlsson!

On a rainy and miserable Saturday morn in the fall, I awoke to a splendid surprise. It was a friend of mine calling, and offering one extra ticket to the Senators-Rangers game, with puck drop in a half hours time. After accepting (obviously), I realized two things- one, that it wasn't morning, but rather early afternoon, and two, that I was still drunk from the previous nights antics. 

As it turned out, the seat was in one of the 400 level Molson boxes, with complimentary beer and a most hospitable environment to boot! Arriving to the box as the puck dropped, we asked our friendly barkeep for some beer and sat down amongst the others in the middle of the seating area. Ah, the high life.

Not much of a fanpost, you say? Well hang on a minute... little did I know that the events surrounding that game would alter the very space-time continuum of the Senators moving forward! As we were seated, looking around and scanning the periphery during the first stoppage, we noticed that the adjacent box to our right was occupied by none other than the GM! Indeed, Bryan Murray was present, and he was sitting oh so close to the partition shared by our box. Naturally, my friends and I immediately got up and relocated to the top right corner of our box in order to survey the scene. 

This is where the fun really started, because we noticed right away that the plexiglass between our boxes was effectively non-existent, and given that he was sitting alone 6 feet to our right, well.. he was very much within earshot. Incredible! So through the first and into the second, we sat, we drank, we watched the game from the NHL 10 classic view (seriously, gameplay looks like its out of a freaking video game from the vantage point up there), and most importantly, we listened. 

We were able to hear real time what the reaction of the GM was to each and every play, and player... and as you could imagine, that was more entertaining than the game itself. Which actually was a snorefest of a 2-1 shootout loss, but I digress. To give you an idea of just where Murray was at, whenever Alex Kovalev would turn over the puck (often- it was early season, the Kovalev experiment had just begun, and we all know its usually still his preseason until the New Years mark anyways), Murray would pound the counter in front of him with his fist and very audibly curse Kovalev's name. Hilarious!

So as the free beers kept coming, so too did the ideas. About halfway through the game, my friends and I came to a profound realization... given that a once in a lifetime opportunity presented itself, you know, to be able to essentially voice our opinions and judgements of the Ottawa Senators roster to the one person that ACTUALLY matters in the franchise... well, we were going to take full advantage of the situation and loudly and proudly proclaim every single change that the team needed. And he was going to sit there and take it.

Now, among our panel's chief 2nd and 3rd period recommendations to the GM were the bizarre (the Jason Spezza for Rick Nash trade proposition), the counterintuitive (the bring back Ray Emery movement), and the downright spiteful (screaming Marc Staal's name repeatedly in an arrogant manner probably wasn't the nicest thing to do, plus what's done is done...Muckler). None of which elicited so much as an eyebrow raise from the man himself, although he most definitely could hear those wasted morons in the Molson box beside him constantly yelling shit while the game was on, for crying out loud.

Anyhow, to wrap this all up, my lone recommendation that I'm proud of has likely had a tangible effect to this day. Our powerplay was looking lifeless at a critical juncture of the game, and in a moment of acute frustration, I yelled out what any rational fan would have;

"Call up Karlsson! Call up Karlsson!"

My friends agreed, joined in, and the chant simply turned into us screaming "Kaaaaaarlssonnnn!" in unison, 5 feet from our general manager,  until our PP expired. 

Long story short, the Sens lost, and Erik Karlsson was subsequently called up from Bingo within the week, eliminating the possibility of burying him and his eligibility in the minors for the year and rolling the dice on his future.

And I'll tell ya what, the kid's been an absolute beaut since, coming to a head last night with a multipoint game, while setting up the powerplay game winner, firing 6 blasts on net, and leading the team in ice time. 

Thanks for listening, Mr. Murray. And thanks for reading.

Go Sens Go!