San Jose Sharks

The San Jose Sharks are one of the Western Conference powerhouses. Unfortunately for us in Ottawa, we only get to see them here every two years. The meeting in Ottawa had me very excited. It was the return of Dany Heatley to Ottawa.

You see, Dany, to date, has been Ottawa's only 50 goal scorer. He did it in back-to-back seasons. At the end of the 2008-09 season, Heatley demanded a trade from the Sens. Nobody knows the real reason, but he claims it was because he didn't get along with coach Cory Clouston. Ironically, the Sens decided to keep Clouston over Heatley, and now a season and a half later may fire him.

A deal was in place to send Heatley to the Edmonton Oilers, but Heatley refused to waive his no-trade clause. On September 12, 2009, he was traded to the San Jose Sharks in return for Milan Michalek, Jonathan Cheechoo (since bought-out), and a second round pick in 2010 (blue chip prospect Robin Lehner).

As you can see, there was a lot of excitement surrounding Heatley's return. I must say, I have never heard the arena that loud before.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that public enemy number one was back in town, the Sharks stayed at the Brookstreet, as many visiting teams to Ottawa do, where there is no access.

Meeting the sharks required a trip to Montreal. The day was beautiful and the team turned out to be really good signers. Obviously I will make a seperate blog for the Team Canada members, but here are the autographs I received from the supporting cast.

Former Ottawa 67 Jamie McGinn

Jamal Mayers

Torrey Mitchell

Former Ottawa 67 and possible rookie of the year Logan Couture

Scott Nichol

Niclas Wallin

Antero Nittymaki

Jason Demers

Ryan Clowe

Antti Niemi

Douglas Murray

Joe Pavelski


I also had some images for Devin Setoguchi and Kent Huskins who were injured and didn't make the trip.