Montreal Canadiens to Play Ottawa Senators in Two Hockeyville Games

The Montreal Canadiens, like every team in the league, and every team in every league for that matter, were affected by the pandemic.

Regular seasons were cancelled, playoffs were played in bubble formats with no fans. There was that weird play-in tournament thing. The Canadiens played in an all-Canadian Division for a season.

A lot of things in the hockey world were thrown into turmoil. One of those things that may have slid under the radar was the annual Kraft Hockeyville preseason game. Each year, small communities across Canada put in bids to Kraft for a chance at hosting a preseason game as well as receiving funding for arena upgrades.

The preseason games didn’t happen in 2020 or 2021, so there are two happening next year and the Canadiens will play in both games against the Ottawa Senators. Each winning community is in the Atlantic region so the same two teams will face off.

The first winning community was Twillingate, Newfoundland and Labrador. They will host a game on October 6th in the nearby city of Gander.

The second winning community was the First Nations community of Elsipogtog, New Brunswick. They will host a game on October 8th in the nearby community of Bouctouche.

Each community wins $250,000 for arena upgrades as well as $10,000 worth of hockey equipment. Elsipogtog First Nation won the money after their arena sustained substantial damage in a fire. The winnings will go a long way to rebuilding their community centre.

The timing of the two games is a little curious. The NHL preseason usually wraps up in the first few days of October, but these Kraft Hockeyville games usually take place early on in the preseason. It will be interesting to see where they fall on the hockey calendar and when the regular season begins.

It will also be interesting to see what kind of lineups are sent out to the small communities in the Atlantic provinces.

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