CTC at 30: Senators honour three decades of moments, milestones and memories
The Ottawa Senators are celebrating 30 years at their home arena, the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata.
Author of the article:By Bruce Garrioch
Published Jan 16, 2026
The Canadian Tire Centre isn’t a house, it’s a home.
The 20,000-seat building in Kanata isn’t just an arena, it’s a destination where people have had the chance to gather over the years to witness historic moments, watch special acts and build memories that will last a lifetime.
What was once a field of dreams for founders Bruce Firestone, Cyril Leeder and Randy Sexton when they were trying to get a National Hockey League expansion franchise for the city has become a reality.
Life happens quickly and passes in a flash.
That’s why, as the Senators prepare to spend the weekend celebrating 30 years at the Canadian Tire Centre, Leeder — the club’s president and chief executive officer — wants everybody involved to enjoy the occasion.
It will start with a visit by Canadian crooner Michael Buble on Friday, a game against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday and will wrap up with the American Hockey League’s Belleville Senators facing the Utica Comets on Sunday at 5 p.m.
The club will have a special surprise guest to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff on Saturday.
“We don’t really have the time, or take the time to smell the roses and celebrate the small wins and the victories along the way,” Leeder told Postmedia in an interview. “Really, you should, but life gets in the way because there’s another game or another mountain to climb the next day.
“When you do get a chance to celebrate, I’ve been telling everybody, take part, and enjoy it. We’re not going to do another one of these unless we’re here another 20 years and I doubt that, so when you get the opportunity to celebrate some success and history, we should do that.”
A long road
If you’re old enough to remember the opening of the Palladium, then you might recall the mountainous hurdles it took to make it a reality.
Some of the original ads in the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun about the rink called it: “The House That Faith Built”.
There were times when Leeder wondered if the dream would ever be a reality. The Senators held a groundbreaking on the site in 1992 and then it took 18 months to get the financing in place to not only build the arena, but also to pay for an accompanying exit on Highway 417.
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Premier Bob Rae and the NDP government refused to pay for highway access to the rink.
“We were borrowing money to pay for the arena and that just added to the debt,” Leeder said.
Owner Rod Bryden, who purchased the franchise from Bruce Firestone at the end of the inaugural season, didn’t anticipate the costs would balloon to nearly $200 million because of the highway interchange and that threw a wrench into lining up stakeholders.
“Rod was the eternal optimist,” Leeder said. “He thought that once he thought of a solution, it was already done. It took a while to figure this out. But we got it done and we got the place built.”
Getting this project completed was paramount to the future of the franchise in Ottawa. When the Senators were awarded an expansion franchise on Dec. 6, 1990, one of the requirements was to build an 18,000-seat arena that could house a National Hockey League team.
The Senators couldn’t afford to play in the 9,800-seat Civic Centre forever.
“We had to build the building because the franchise was conditional on moving out of the Civic Centre,” Leeder recalled. “We said it would take two years, but it took three-and-a-half, and it was an important part of the granting of the franchise.”
A palace in Kanata
The best ideas are often duplicated.
New Senators owner Michael Andlauer likes to use the phrase that you rip off and duplicate. That’s pretty much what went into the design of the Canadian Tire Centre when it came down to making the final plans.
Firestone, Sexton — the club’s former president and general manager — and Leeder visited several buildings around the NHL and the National Basketball Association.
Leeder noted they had visited several locations, but when they walked into the Palace at Auburn Hills, which then housed the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, the Senators knew they had found their design plan.
“The second-last building we saw was the Palace,” Leeder said. “We really hadn’t found one we wanted to be like until we walked into the Palace. I remember walking into the Palace with Randy Sexton, it would have been around 1988, and we walked out on to centre court from the loading dock.
“We looked up and we thought: ‘Oh my god, this is an arena.’ It had theatre-style seats, it had suites down low and it was really modern. The signage was fantastic, it looked more like a theatre than a hockey arena.”
The Senators worked with Detroit-based architects Matt Rosetti and his dad, Gino, on the design of the Palladium.
“What’s great about this building is the sightlines and the seating,” Leeder said. “We built in a field, so we had no real constraints. If you’re building in downtown Toronto or Montreal, they had to tell the architects what their priorities are, put them in, and then make everything else fit.
“We were a little bit different. We wanted every seat to be a minimum of 19 inches wide. We wanted the upper bowl to hang over the 200 level. That pushes the last row of the seating about 20 feet forward. We sat in the row in every building with Matt and asked if this was acceptable.”
Turning back the clock
The Senators wanted to make sure they marked this occasion the right way.
The rink, which was then called The Palladium, opened its doors with a concert by Canadian rocker Bryan Adams on Jan. 15, 1996, and two days later, on Jan. 17, the Senators hosted the Habs in the first home game.
The Senators were hopeful they could have Adams, who spent part of his youth in Ottawa and attended Colonel By High School, back as part of the celebration, but he’s in the middle of a tour and was here in October.
“We asked Bryan about coming back, but couldn’t get it to fit into the January window,” Leeder said. “We wanted a Canadian, and the good news is that Michael Buble isn’t touring, but he agreed to do a special show for this anniversary and we’re just about sold out.
“He’s a hockey fan, yes. Unfortunately, he’s a Vancouver Canucks’ fan.”
That’s OK, the Senators got the better of the Canucks with a 2-1 win at home on Tuesday night. The visit by the Habs is appropriate because they’ve become one of Ottawa’s biggest rivals over the years.
The Senators dropped a 3-0 decision to Montreal in the opener, with Andrei Kovalenko scoring the first goal in the history of the building in the second period.
Naturally, this time, the Senators are hoping for a better result, with the club trying to return to the playoffs.
FIRSTS AT THE CTC
OTTAWA GOAL: Steve Duchesne from Alexei Yashin and Daniel Alfredsson in the first period on Jan. 22 in a 7-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.
OTTAWA WIN: The Senators scored a 4-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Jan. 29. That was coach Jacques Martin’s fourth game behind the bench after taking over from Dave Allison on Jan. 24.
PLAYOFF GAME: On April 29, 1997, the Senators hosted the Buffalo Sabres in Round 1. The late Sergei Zholtok scored the first playoff goal in franchise history in the building. The Senators dropped a 3-2 decision to allow the Sabres to take a 2-1 series lead. Buffalo went on to win in Game 7.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS
ON TO THE PLAYOFFS: Steve Duchesne broke a scoreless tie with a shot from the point at 15:59 of the third period on April 12, 1997, against the Buffalo Sabres to secure the club’s first trip to the post-season.
ALFIE’S 400TH CAREER GOAL: Daniel Alfredsson had a lot of signature moments in his career, but he also had a flair for the dramatic. He scored No. 400 on a one-timer on Dec. 30, 2011, in a 4-3 overtime victory over the Calgary Flames. That capped Ottawa’s comeback from a 3-0 first-period deficit, and Erik Karlsson set Alfredsson up for the winner.
2007 STANLEY CUP FINAL GAME 3: Down 2-0 to the Anaheim Ducks in the final, the Senators were welcomed by a raucous, packed house at home for Game 3. The Senators skated to a 5-3 victory over the Ducks in the club’s only victory in the series. Chris Neil scored the first goal in Stanley Cup final history in the building for the Senators. Anton Volchenkov, Dean McAammond, Mike Fisher and Alfredsson also chipped in with goals. The late Ray Emery made 19 stops on June 2, 2007.
2003 EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL GAME 3: This memory might be for all the wrong reasons, but it’s difficult to forget. After forcing Game 7 with one of the biggest goals in Chris Phillips’ career in New Jersey in Game 6, the table was set for the Senators to book a ticket to the Stanley Cup final. After Radek Bonk had tied it up 2-2 early in the third, New Jersey’s Jeff Friesen broke the hearts of a team and the city by beating Patrick Lalime with only 2:14 left in the game to secure a 3-2 victory for the Devils.
THE LAST WORDS
Thirty years ago, the Senators buried a time capsule in the lobby of the rink and the plan is to unearth it in the coming days to see what’s in it.
Leeder said he found some pictures of the capsule, which is made of stainless steel, at his home. He believes he put in a bottle of Palladium dirt from the official groundbreaking and there might even be a copy of the Ottawa Sun from the day as well.
“We put the capsule down, and we sealed it up,” Leeder said.
Thirty years later, it will be interesting to take a look back and celebrate a milestone moment.
But you would be remiss if you didn’t mention the fact that Kanata has become exactly what Firestone envisioned.
https://ottawacitizen.com/ottawa-sen...cades-memories
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I had no idea of the Nepean proposal before all this. Thanks for sharing that extra tidbit. Very interesting. 
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