Let's step into Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine. Set it to 1906, Sherman, a century to the year, to view another sorry moment in the city's hockey history.
That season, the Ottawa Silver Seven -- the Senators, in fact, but with a cooler name -- twice won the Stanley Cup, but then lost it, in a 17-day span.
It was 11 years before the birth of the NHL, when players were mostly amateurs -- some would say, much like this year's playoff Senators.
The Silver Seven were defending Cup champions during a time when any club that felt deserving could challenge for Lord Stanley's sterling bowl.
The sensational Seven beat Queen's University in a two-game series Feb. 27 and 28, 1906, then won another two-game test March 6 and 8 against Smiths Falls. Goaler Percy LeSueur was so good for the losers that the Silver Seven signed him up, the ultimate free agent when guys played for free, for the March 14 and 17 challenge against the Montreal Wanderers.
This would prove sweet revenge for manager Dickie Boon's Montreal side, which had lost a challenge to Ottawa in 1904; then, the teams had tied the first game 5-5 in Montreal, but the Wanderers were subsequently disqualified for refusing to play the next two games in Ottawa. That was the Seven's fifth challenge victory of 10 consecutive successful defences.
The 10-game 1905-06 season wasn't yet complete when Ottawa agreed to a Stanley Cup challenge from Queen's University, champions of the Ontario Hockey Association. The Sevens thumped the collegians 16-7 and 12-7.
Then four days from the end of the schedule, Eastern Canadian Amateur Hockey Association trustees demanded that Ottawa defend again, versus Smiths Falls. The Sevens' narrower 6-5 and 8-2 victories nevertheless sent them into the playoffs with high hopes, not unlike another Ottawa club 100 years later.
However, the Wanderers routed the Sevens 9-1 in the opener, with Montreal-born and bred multi-sport star Ernie Russell scoring four times for the winners.
Still, Ottawans weren't counting out their heroes. Former governor general Earl Grey, who three years later would donate to Canada a rugby football cup of some note, had a rinkside seat among the 5,000 fans who packed Ottawa's Dey's Arena for Game 2. Sevens goaler Billy Hague was replaced by the newly acquired LeSueur, to whom the Wanderers voiced no objection.
Ernie (Moose) Johnson quickly opened the scoring for Montreal. Now leading 10-1 in the two-game, total-goals series, the Wanderers sat back to protect a lead they believed to be insurmountable. Until the Sevens scored nine straight goals to even it at 10-10.
"Pandemonium reigned. Hats, scarves and rubbers came flying on the ice and the rafters rang," Charles L. Coleman wrote in his encyclopedia The Trail of the Stanley Cup. "Regardless of the outcome, the Silver Seven had proved their mettle and fought back ... against terrific odds."
Alas, a Cinderella story was not to be. Montreal's Lester Patrick scored twice, giving the Wanderers a 12-10 series win despite their 9-3 loss in the game.
Making headlines the next day was the fact that during a scuffle along the boards, Moose Johnson's 75-inch stick -- a foot longer than legally allowed in today's NHL -- knocked the derby off the governor general's head.
"The year I quit (1931), they buried my stick," Johnson said in his Hall of Fame biography. "It was the longest ever used."
Moose would make more history in 1907, when the ECAHA allowed professionals to play with amateurs. He was among five men to sign paying contracts with the Wanderers, and was in the select first group of pros to win the Stanley Cup. Johnson won a total of eight, counting every victorious challenge.
The Wanderers franchise would perish in the 1918 fire that began in their dressing room and destroyed their arena.
The Senators would live until their one-year transfer to St. Louis in 1933, then vanish until they rejoined the NHL in 1992.
They celebrated their last of four NHL-won Stanley Cups in 1927, though they have 19 if you also count their winnings pre-NHL, as many Ottawans do.
The Rideau Canal must freeze over and melt once more, at least, before the Senators break their hearts again.
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