The Ottawa Senators and Ottawa 67’s share some common bonds beyond playing in the same city.
For example, the 67’s are famous for their barber pole uniforms, but they actually originated with the Senators. The Sens/Silver Seven wore the red, black, and white striped uniforms when they won 11 Stanley Cups in the early 1900s.
While their ownerships haven’t always been on the same page, they’re getting along famously these days, even partnering on a major project this winter. The two organizations collaborated with Ottawa Tourism, Hockey Eastern Ontario (HEO), the City of Ottawa, and the Province of Ontario to bid for and win the rights to the World Hockey Championships this December.
But the Senators haven’t done much bonding with Ottawa 67’s NHL draft prospects.
According to the CHL, there were 197 former OHL players on NHL 2023-24 Opening Day Rosters. That represents 25% of all players in the NHL last season.
In their 34-year history, the Senators have only ever drafted four players from the 67’s. So there is no debate. They all get to be on the Mount Rushmore of the best Ottawa 67’s to be drafted by the Senators. Congratulations to the big four:
Will Colbert
The first was Arnprior-born defenceman Will Colbert, drafted in the 7th round in 2003. Colbert played three years with the 67’s, but the Senators never signed him. He re-entered the draft and was taken in the 6th round by San Jose in 2005. That fall, he headed for St. Francis Xavier University, where he played for four years. Colbert then rolled for six more years at various pro levels, including one final season over in the Netherlands.
Corey Cowick
Like Colbert, Cowick was another local product, drafted from the 67’s in the sixth round in 2009. At 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, the Gloucester native was a big defensive forward that today’s Senators would have had a lot of time for. But despite having four solid seasons as a top AHL penalty killer in Binghamton, he never got into a single NHL game. He was a member of the B-Sens team that won the 2010-11 AHL Calder Cup. He’s now a City of Ottawa firefighter.
Shane Prince
Prince is the only player on this list who doesn’t hail from the Ottawa area. In February 2011, the Sens traded Chris Kelly to Boston for a second-round pick. That summer, they used that pick to take Prince, the 67’s forward from Rochester, New York. Kelly won the Stanley Cup with the Bruins the following season and played seven more years in the league.
Prince had 88 points in 59 games in his draft year, riding shotgun with players like Tyler Toffoli and Sean Monahan. Prince played three years in Binghamton, where he emerged as nearly a point-a-game scorer. After half a season in Ottawa, he was traded for a third-rounder to the Islanders, where he spent parts of three seasons. Now 31, Prince plays in the KHL with Moscow Spartak.
Cody Ceci
Ceci is the best and the last Ottawa 67 the Senators ever drafted. After posting nearly a point per game on that same team Prince played for, Ceci was chosen in the first round in 2012, 15th overall. He was selected that early because of those offensive numbers, but he’s never been able to come close to recreating them in the NHL.
In hindsight, Ceci would have been well-served to stay in the AHL for a couple of seasons. As a rookie, he played 27 games in Binghamton, scoring 19 points. Instead of letting him cook and grow his confidence, the Senators figured 27 AHL games (and three the season before) was enough and brought him up to the NHL to stay. Ceci couldn’t recreate his offence prowess in Ottawa, and was always miscast as a shutdown guy. After six seasons, the Sens dealt him to Toronto.
But to his credit, Ceci has still carved out a nice long NHL career of 786 games (and counting). He came within one win of a Stanley Cup in Edmonton. And it doesn’t hurt to have one of the greatest defencemen in history in your corner.
“I have all the time in the world for Cody Ceci,” Oilers assistant coach Paul Coffey told the Edmonton Journal. “He trusts me, I trust him. You saw that pass in Game Seven. He wouldn’t have made that play before, but he had the confidence to do that. Same with shooting the puck. You saw that in the Vancouver series. These guys are NHL players, the best of the best. They’re here for a reason.”
Meanwhile, if we add in former 67’s who played for the Senators, but weren’t drafted by them, the list doesn’t get much longer. It includes former Sens captains Randy Cunneyworth and Brad Shaw, along with Brendan Bell, Corey Locke, Zenon Konopka, and Shean Donovan.
None of this is to suggest the Senators have dropped the ball by not going after 67’s prospects more frequently. You always draft the best player available. But given how easy it is to monitor the local OHL club, it’s a little surprising that only four 67’s have ever been handed Senator jerseys and ballcaps at the NHL Draft.
