Is Ottawa Senators Defenceman Thomas Chabot Inviting Trouble With His Pre-Game Warmup Ritual?

NHL players are a superstitious bunch.

Some of them have rituals that must be adhered to. Sometimes, it involves equipment—taping their stick or shin pads a certain way. Maybe that right skate has to go on first. Or, like former Senator Bruce Gardiner during a scoring slump, perhaps it’s time to dip the old stick blade into the toilet bowl.

Other superstitions are even more random, like Tom Chorske carrying around a little wooden Buddha figurine in his shaving kit during the 1998 playoffs. In the 2017 playoffs, former Senator J.G. Pagiot ate two chicken parms and then scored four goals in a win over the Rangers. Pageau later declared he wasn’t superstitious, but there was no shortage of fans scarfing down chicken parm before Game 3. We even crushed a couple during our morning show on the day of the game.

Those are all fun little rituals that no one is ever offended by.

For Ottawa Senators defenceman Thomas Chabot, his ritual near the end of the pre-game skate is firing a puck into the opponent’s net. TSN 1200 radio says it’s something he always does, and they posted a video of him waiting for everyone to leave before shooting one puck into his net and then another into the Boston Bruins’ net.

The question is, as games get more meaningful this season, will Chabot’s ritual be appreciated by the Senators’ opponents? NHL players have always taken offense to opponent shenanigans around their net, even in warm-up.

Back in 1987, pesky Montreal Canadiens forward Claude Lemieux had a tradition of doing almost exactly what Chabot does—putting the puck into the opponent’s net after the warm-up was over. The Habs took it a step further, though, skating the puck right to the far net before shooting it in.

The Philadelphia Flyers got wind of this superstition during their playoff series with the Canadiens that year. When Claude Lemieux, with Shayne Corson riding shotgun, tried to do his thing after the warm-up, two Flyers players returned to the ice to try to stop them.

Former Ottawa 67 Ed “Boxcar” Hospodar grabbed Lemieux and pounded him. The funny thing was that Corson didn’t even try that hard to stop Hospodar. Somehow, 5-foot-9, 165-pound goalie Glenn Resch was able to keep Corson at bay. Then everyone came out from both teams, and with no referees around to intervene, the brawl was on.

I get it. That was a million years ago. The game has changed a lot since 1987. But I would argue that, in some ways, the NHL is as old school as ever.

This is still a league where players can still take offence to things like that. For example:

Everyone knows NHL players are fiercely protective of their goalie, their net, and their end of the ice – always have been, always will. Players who disrespect those things do so at their own peril. As Chabot’s tradition becomes more widely known and opponents start to get wind of it, it will be interesting to see if they attempt to put a stop to it.

If it comes to that, it certainly won’t be a repeat of what happened in 1987, because character-wise, Chabot is a far more respected player than Claude Lemieux. But there are definitely opponents who won’t care for it. Chabot knows that or he wouldn’t bother to wait for the last Bruin, Brad Marchand, to completely go down the tunnel. If there’s video out there of Chabot doing this with opponents still lingering on their bench, I will stand corrected.

It’s easy to imagine a guy like Marchand hanging out after warmup ends to make sure Chabot leaves the ice without “desecrating” the far net. Along with some loud profanity, that would probably be the extent of it. But if others got involved in the discussion, anything is possible.

I’ll say this. If you’re emulating the pre-game ritual of Claude Lemieux, the player who makes everyone’s list of the most hated players in NHL history, maybe you should reconsider your choice.

Is Chabot inviting trouble or is this much ado about nothing? Let us know in the comments below at the Senators Roundtable Forum.

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