OTTAWA — A day after falling behind 3-0 in their first-round playoff series, the Ottawa Senators celebrated. They celebrated the life of Mark Reeds.
Players and team personnel, many of them wearing black, gathered at Canadian Tire Centre along with the Reeds’ family on Monday afternoon to honour the assistant coach who died far too young at age 55 after a battle with esophageal cancer.
It was a private ceremony — a day for the Senators family to close ranks — but even an outsider could sense its importance.
Reeds was behind the team’s bench as recently as a trip to California in late February and addressed players near the end of the regular season. He died on April 14, the day before Game 1 against Montreal, and continues to symbolically be listed on the official gamesheet in the series.
“I’m still kind of in shock that it happened,” said defenceman Marc Methot. “It just doesn’t feel right. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but I just remember having Reeder on the ice this season and doing skating drills with him.
“He was working me on the walls there, making sure my passing was on and little things like that, and now all of sudden he’s not here.”
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Senators coach Dave Cameron appeared to get choked up during a video tribute and moment of silence for Reeds prior to Game 3. The team is also honouring his memory with “MR” stickers on helmets, and pins on suits.
With a funeral mass still to be held in St. Louis, Monday’s ceremony in Ottawa was billed as a celebration of life.
“I’m sure we’re going to have a ton of laughs,” Cameron predicted beforehand. “There’ll be a few tears, too.”
The two men knew one another well. They were NHL players at the same time, coached against each other in the Ontario Hockey League and got hired as assistants on Paul MacLean’s staff on the same day in June 2011.
Cameron noted that Reeds didn’t have a big public persona as an assistant coach, but logged long hours behind the scenes. The Sens private ceremony offered the chance for those who knew the man well to share some stories.
“When you get over the mourning and you have the tears and you do the cleansing, you start the celebration of life,” said Cameron. “You start the good memories.”
It’s been a particularly emotional year for the organization, with general manager Bryan Murray battling Stage 4 colon cancer, and the team experiencing some extreme highs and lows on the ice.
Rookie forward Mark Stone remembered Reeds as a guy who was always quick with a smile and had a knack for loosening the mood inside the dressing room. When the assistant coach last visited in March, he addressed the players despite being weakened by his disease.
“To be able to know that he’s in a better place, and not suffering, is probably the biggest relief,” said goalie Craig Anderson. “Because we saw how he was the last little bit and that’s not fun for anybody.”
Still, his presence is obviously missed.
“It crosses your mind when you’re coming to the rink and you think about it and it just makes you realize how random and fragile we can be,” said Methot. “I don’t know, it’s just a little surreal. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.”
One of the great things about sports is the ability to simply get lost in the game. On the ice, in the heat of battle, there is basically nothing else.
That feeling tends to get even more amplified during the relentless grind of the playoffs, but on Monday afternoon the Senators willingly stepped outside the bubble.
“You’ve got to put the series away today,” said forward Clarke MacArthur. “Today is about Mark Reeds. It puts things in perspective. This series means a lot to us and the city, but today is about our friend Mark.
“We all need to pay our respects.”
RIP.