The Ottawa Senators and Ottawa 67’s share some common ties besides playing in the same city.
For example, the ’67s are famous for their barber uniforms, but they actually originated with senators. The Sens/Silver Seven wore red, black and white striped uniforms when they won 11 Stanley Cups in the early 20th century.
While their properties aren’t always on the same page, they’re getting along pretty well these days, even partnering on a big 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 Championship in December.
But the Senators haven’t established many ties with the Ottawa 67’s NHL draft prospects.
According to the CHL, there were 197 former OHL players on the 2023-24 NHL Opening Day rosters. That’s 25% of all NHL players last season.
In their 34-year history, the Senators have drafted just four players over the age of 67. So there is no debate. They will all 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 defenseman Will Colbert, drafted in the 7th round in 2003. Colbert played three years with the 67’s, but the Senators never signed him. He returned to the draft and was taken in the 6th round by San Jose in 2005. That fall, he headed to St. Francis Xavier University, where he played for four years. Colbert then played for another six years at various professional levels, including a final season in the Netherlands.
Corey Cowick
Like Colbert, Cowick was another local product, drafted at 67 in the sixth round in 2009. At 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, the Gloucester native was a big defensive lineman that today’s Senators would have plenty of time for. But despite having four solid seasons as one of the AHL’s top penalty killers in Binghamton, he never appeared in a single NHL game. He was a member of the B-Sens team that won the 2010-11 AHL Calder Cup. He is now a firefighter for the city of Ottawa.
Shane Prince
Prince is the only player on this list who doesn’t come from the Ottawa region. In February 2011, the Sens traded Chris Kelly to Boston for a second-round draft pick. That summer, they used that pick to sign Prince, the No. 67 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, facing players like Tyler Toffoli and Sean Monahan. Prince played three years at Binghamton, where he emerged as almost a point-per-game scorer. After half a season in Ottawa, he was traded for a third-round pick 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 last Ottawa 67 the Senators have ever drafted. After putting up nearly a point per game on the same team Prince played for, Ceci was drafted in the 2012 first round, 15th overall. He was drafted so early because of those offensive numbers, but he was never 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 few seasons. As a rookie, he played in 27 games at Binghamton, scoring 19 points. Instead of letting him stew and build his confidence, the Senators realized that 27 AHL games (and three the season before) were enough and brought him to the NHL to stay. Ceci was unable to recreate his offensive ability in Ottawa and was always poorly regarded as a shut-down guy. After six seasons, the Sens moved him to Toronto.
But to his credit, Ceci still carved out a long NHL career of 786 games (and counting). He came within one victory of the Stanley Cup in Edmonton. And it doesn’t hurt to have one of the greatest defenders in history alongside him.
“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 it. The same thing happened with the puck shot. You saw that in the Vancouver series. Those guys are NHL players, the best of the best. They’re here for a reason.”
Meanwhile, if we add the ex-67s who played for the Senadores but were not called up by them, the list doesn’t increase much. It includes former Sens captains Randy Cunneyworth and Brad Shaw, along with Brendan Bell, Corey Locke, Zenon Konopka and Shean Donovan.
None of this suggests that the senators dropped the ball by not going after the ’67 candidates more often. You always select the best player available. But given how easy it is to monitor your local OHL club, it’s a little surprising that only four 67s received Senator jerseys and hats at the NHL Draft.
