OverDrive - Garrioch on Tkachuk's return to Ottawa, the hostile environment and the Senators' perspective

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

Postmedia Hockey Columnist and TSN Contributor Bruce Garrioch joined OverDrive to discuss Brady Tkachuk's return to Ottawa against the Senators, the hostility in the building, the atmosphere for the game, how the Tkachuk brothers will look to have a massive game and more.

All right, let's head to Ottawa ahead of the game tonight. It is Sends Panthers, Brady Kuchuk, making his return, post-media hockey columnist. T.S.N. Contributor joining us now on the Maple Trenah hotline. There he is, Bruce Garriac. Bruce, where do you stand? How does the market stand on Brady and some of the Sends going for dinner last night? I don't get the sense, fellas, that they were too happy about it. And I don't think any fan here would have wanted to be invited to that dinner.

Let's put it that way. do think that Tim Stutzla did cook up a lot of things when he said he has a chef at home. That cooked up a lot of speculation here about where Tim Stutzla and Brady Kachachuk's relationship is. Right. Bruce Hasey does a lot of blame charts where he kind of breaks up where the problems lie in different scenarios around sports. If you could come up with some percentages on how we got to this point with Brady Kachuk leaving the organization, would it be belief in the team, being in Canada, what happened, is treatment after the Olympics? How could you piece that all together on how we got here to begin with?

Well, I would say that 99% of the time, I tell you, Odog, that he was never going to finish his career here anyway. I never felt that the senators were a long-term stay for him. I think perhaps it probably ended a year earlier than I thought. I just thought that things change after the Olympics, and Jamie could tell you this better than anybody. I mean, Brady Kachuk said today, O'Dog, that he felt like he gave his blood, sweat, and tears for this organization, and that should be his legacy.

And on a lot of nights he did. But I think you need to be reminded here, and I think Jamie will remember this. They played horribly on March 18th in Washington, and he was bad. And the next morning in his office, Travis Green challenged Brady Kachuk to do something. Be the Brady Kachuk that they expected him to be. He went out that night, and he fought Anders Lee, and he was back in everybody's good books here. But if you're looking for me to split up a blame pie, I'd say 60% was he was never going to finish his career here.

and I think the other 40% would be the fallout from the Olympics and the four nations, playing with his brother and the opportunity to be in Florida. And I think he just speeded it up a little bit. So Bruce, tonight, you know, Paul Maurice had a comment this morning about, you know, if you're a fan, you know, cheer how you feel or boo how you feel. You know, what do you get the sense of what it's going to actually be like? Is it going to start in warm up? is it going to start, you know, after the anthems?

Like, it's obviously going to be quite loud and quite negative. Remind people, though, I do believe, and I brought this up yesterday, there was a jersey swap. So you're not going to see a lot of jerseys on the ice, are you? Because I think people traded them in for other players' jerseys. Is that correct? Well, yeah, the local minor league professional baseball team had a jersey swap for their jerseys soon after.

after Kachuk was traded. They also allowed a bunch of people here to change their jerseys at the shop. But I still think we're going to see some jerseys on the ice. You know, I was reminding someone today, Noodles, that Danny Heatley got traded in September 2009. At those times, he didn't play everybody in both ways. So he didn't come back here for 16 months, and Jersey still landed on the ice the night he was here. I think that tonight, It's going to be louder here. I think he's going to be booed as soon as he comes out for warm-up. I think he'll be booed every time he touches the puck.

I would hope that Paul Maurice would satisfy everybody and put him in the starting lineup. We do know at the first TV time out, they're going to honor him with a video that will be focused a lot on what he did in the community. I have a hard time feeling the people here would boo that. But I think that once that happens, there'll be a mixed reaction. and then they'll just go back to booing. So we're expecting, yes, to be very loud, very nasty tonight. But you referenced Danny Heatley

in his return. Prior to Heatley, there was the Yashin holdout and demand and then trade and then his return. So that's three big ones in 25 years, 30 years or so that Ottawa's been through. How would you rank those,

Bruce? The hatred towards the player. Brady, Heatley, Yashin, how would they rank for you? Well, social media, obviously, there's a lot more, I've seen a lot more for Brady Kachuk than I ever saw

for the other two guys. I mean, the other two guys you basically got letters to the editor. Now, our publication, when Heatley did come back, had a full-sized page with his face on it, with a soother in his mouth, and you could

put that on a stick and hold it over your face, you know? And there were a lot of those in the Greek that night. We didn't do that today with our legacy product, but I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. But if you asked me to rank them, right now, Heatley's number one. Kachuk would be two and Yashin would be three. But I could say by the end of the night, we'll be flip-flopping one and two. Let's put it that way.

So, Bruce, just looking at the game tonight, do you, this is just maybe my feeling, but I don't know how you guys would feel about this. I feel it's all about Brady, but somehow Matthew the Big Brother is going to be the story tonight. Do you not feel like that Matthew will be trying to be a difference maker, try and do anything to take some of the light off of Brady? Well, I think, I said this to clear earlier, noodles.

I think that Matthew and Brady together are going to try to cause some chaos. I could see scenarios where, you know, one of them tries to fight. I mean, I could see a scenario where Liena Slemaert gets a face wash on a stop near the crease. I could see a lot of things happening here tonight where they try to make themselves physically involved and try to run a rough shot over the senators. And we know that they have before. And do the senators have the answer for that physically? Well, Hayden Hodgson shouldn't be on the ice the same time as both of the Kachaks.

But I could totally see Matthew and Brady sitting there getting each other fired up today and trying to get the crowd against them because you know what I know. They feed off that stuff. I mean, these are two guys who went into Montreal during the Four Nations and dropped the gloves against Team Canada off the opening face off. Like, they have it in them. Brucey, you mentioned one of your tweets that the building,

or there was something about an interest level in the game of all the tickets like it's going to be a pack. house. Is it Bruce? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if you can hear us or not. Yeah. Is it a sellout tonight? Is that the plan? No, I lost you there. Uh-oh. They were, they were, they were closing in on a sellout. Um, the last I checked, they had sold about a thousand more. I would assume it will be sold out tonight. Don't forget a sellout now is 17,000. So I think they'll get it there. They had some last minute rush sales going on. I hope so. I mean, This is one, because it's a story.

No, it has to be. It has to be. You have to sell out this game. And you can't, as a fan-based claim, you know, all this noise and all this hatred and these personal attacks that I think I get the impression. A lot of Senator fans have kind of responded with based on Kachuk leaving and why he left. Because a part of it is maybe the hockey club, but I think most people there think it's the town. It's the city. It's the market.

It's the country. And that's, you know, if you don't pack the country. the house tonight, that's trouble, clearly. But what about from the team's perspective, Bruce? Like, how are, because some teams would, would look at this and say, we, we, we can't publicly endorse craziness and in a rallying cry, but privately we want it because we feel like Kachuk's demanding out as a shot at us. Do you sense that the sends ownership and management coaching staff look at it that way?

How are they responding to this? Well, I think they kind of look at it. They know that people are going to come and express their opinions through hopefully loudly, but they wanted them to do it within legal limits. You know, I know that they've got extra security in here tonight. I know that they are concerned about jerseys being thrown on the ice. They don't want anybody, you know, burning jerseys here. They don't want anybody, and I hope people don't.

They don't want anybody booing the anthem. I think they're concerned about the level. of pushback, especially kind of in this day and age. But I think one of the things they've done is, you know, one of the reasons this isn't sold out is this is one of the top ten most expensive games of the year in this arena. You know, I looked the other day, a ticket in the section I'm sitting in is $240 for tonight. Tomorrow night when San Jose comes to town, it's $140. Well, how do you reconcile that, right? Well, I mean, their argument would be, I'm sure they were in.

anticipating this thing would sell out in a heartbeat. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm sure they were. Yeah, I got to believe there, I don't know if it's panic, if it's surprise or what have you. I just, this is a match made in heaven if you're a sports fan to be in the building tonight. One of those games, you've got to see Brady's return. So, yeah, well, and guys, like, I've seen a lot of regular season games here. You don't get many regular season games that have a playoff feel this morning at a playoff I feel. There is a ton of media here and a lot of out-of-town media when people don't travel much.

Right. And they had to use a media room where the senators usually used for Brady Kachuk and Paul Maurice this morning because there's so much media here that there wasn't room in the visitors' room. Yeah, that does not surprise me at all. I don't think it would surprise anybody. And we'll see what is the anticipation after the game, Bruce, that Brady's going to talk again. and then the next time he rolls in town as he do it all over again? What do you expect once they play the game?

Well, I think this will close a chapter on the book, won't it? I mean, you know, I think that you have to get this over with once, and then I think everybody moves on, and then when next time it comes back, people will just, they'll probably boo him every time he touches the puck, but other than that, there won't be much pushback after that. I think I do believe that both sides will be happy to get this one over with. Well, it'll be electric this evening.

Have fun in there, Bruce. Thank you for doing this. We'll do it again down the road. It's a calm before the storm. Yeah, it sure is. Thank you, Bruce. There he is, Bruce Garriott, joining us here. TSN contributor Postmedia Hockey column is joining us on the Maple Trieda Hotline.

I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now I've got my own show. So if you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies, available on all TSN platforms in the iHeartRadio app.