I have been a huge hockey fan since I was a kid.  I started out cheering for the Rangers, then the Maple Leafs and Coyotes.  The Senators have been my favourite team since 1998, and for the last 13 years I have faithfully cheered for them, despite them seemingly always being the underdog.  A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon this site, and have been following regularly and contributing sporadically.  The highlight for me was being invited by the Silver Seven head honchos to join a fantasy pool for the first time ever, and finishing a very respectable 4th out of 20, including my shocking 8th-seed upset of 1st-seed STP in the first round of the playoffs!

However, it is time for me to say goodbye, both to you fine folks here and the Ottawa Senators being my #1 team.  Saturday morning I will be purchasing season tickets, my basement will slowly change lose the black and gold to be replaced with blue, and I will begin cheering once again for my hometown team.  It's about time.

Good luck next year!

- Joel in Winnipeg

In a previous post, Johnny_Spectacular mentioned his "Big Five" - the five teams he hates the most.  Or, for those of you that see the glass half full, the five teams he likes the least.  That got me thinking about who my Big Five would be, and that we should all post our Big Five with a short explanation as to why they made the list.  Give it a shot, here are mine:

5 - NEW JERSEY DEVILS - They played the most boring hockey possible while winning three Stanley Cups from 1995 to 2003.  During one such Stanley Cup year I vividly remember them getting all the way to the Finals before finally selling out a home game.  Oh, yeah, and the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals.  Not crazy about that.

4 - CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS - This is based purely on hearsay, but being from Winnipeg I hear many tales of encounters with Jonathan Toews, all of which point to him letting his fame go to his head.  Taking girls out on dates and then completely ignoring them, insisting he be served in French at government institutions, and, my personal favourite, threatening to beat up a friend of mine at a bar after he was pushed into him by mistake.  My friend is 5'5".

3 - MONTREAL CANADIENS - My friend and I used to rent out rooms wherever we lived, one time to a diehard Habs fan.  This fan moved out and stiffed my friend for utilities to the tune of $700.  I wish nothing but misery for him, and nothing makes him as miserable as a Habs loss.

2 - SAN JOSE SHARKS - No explanation required.

1 - TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS - My dad was a Habs fan growing up and had to live in Toronto from 1962-1964 for 3 straight Stanley Cup wins by the Leafs.  He never told me this until well after I had already become a Sens fan.  This almost convinces me that my extreme dislike for the Leafs is in fact hereditary, since even though my cousin once played for the Leafs, my entire family can't stand that team.  Nobody hates the Leafs more than my dad.  He's the only person I know that wants the Leafs to be in the hunt for a playoff berth until the last possible moment, only to be eliminated and miss out on the last day of the regular season.  I was lucky enough to watch Wade Dubieliwicz's poke check in the shootout with him a few years back to see his dream come true.  You know you have something going when you have a father-son moment cheering against the Leafs.

Adnan's previous FanPost about Anton Volchenkov wanting to stay got the comment section fired up about booing former players.  Who deserves to get booed, who doesn't, why or why not.  Zdeno Chara gets booed when he returns to Ottawa.  Marian Hossa was taunted by Pittsburgh fans at the conclusion of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals in Detroit.  Chrish Pronger gets booed by fans in 29 cities.

Whether or not Volchenkov gets booed in his return to Ottawa remains to be seen.  However, there is one former Senator whose return to Ottawa this upcoming season on Thursday, December 2 is hotly anticipated for all the wrong reasons.  I will make every attempt to get tickets to this game, put in for some vacation time at my job in Winnipeg and attend what could be the most anticipated regular-season Sens game in a long time:

Dany Heatley's Return To Ottawa.

I hope nobody tries to do anything foolish to him before the game.  I hope he doesn't get pelted with objects from the stands.  I do, however, hope he is shown as much disrespect as he showed us when he demanded to be traded.  A demand he made after he felt he wasn't being used in the correct offensive situations in Ottawa, putting up 39 goals, his lowest total as a Senator.  A trade to San Jose that freed him from the well-rounded coaching bonds of Cory Clouston, where he could now flourish offensively and put up an astonishing......39 goals.

Maybe Ottawa wasn't the problem.

I know we're all looking forward to booing louder than ever before upon his return, but since we have such a long wait ahead of us, why not take the time and put in the effort to arrange something far more disrespectful than a boo?  He's earned it.  He does not deserve to be acknowledged.  He should be ignored.

Add your thought in the comments about what you think about ignoring Dany Heatley upon his return.  Total silence when he takes the ice, total silence if his name is announced in the starting lineup, and, best of all, total silence whenever he touches the puck.  It might sound silly, or ridiculous, but there four and a half months to go.  We've got to be able to come up with something more than just boos and burning effigies of Dany Heatley dolls.

Back on January 14th, 2010, DarrenM posted an article entitled "Are Elliott and Leclaire the worst Senators goalie tandem ever?"  ( http://www.silversevensens.com/2010/1/14/1249349/are-elliott-and-leclaire-the-worst) .  The article goes on to debate that question, but it also asks if the Senators have EVER had the quality goaltending needed to win the Stanley Cup.  I'm a firm believer that any team, regardless of talent and skill up front and on the blueline, has a better chance to win it all with a steady goaltending situation.  The statistics researched below paint a very telling picture in proving my point.

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