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Finally, we could feel Craig Anderson's pain.
Not with whatever's going on in his right hand, we still don't understand that. But the pain he's going through while letting his teammates down again -- and perhaps the feeling that no one gets it.
"It's killing me inside to not play," Anderson said Friday morning, his eyes starting to water. "To watch, and not be able to ... (long pause) ... and not be able to be there for the guys.
"It hurts."
With that, the scrum broke up and Anderson turned to take care of some business at his stall. I hung back for a second, and when I leaned over to say something to him, I noticed his upper lip was trembling. He was crying. Not bawling like a baby, not weeping uncontrollably with tears rolling down his face. But an emotional, choked up sob.
He smiled at the joke I cracked, but he was obviously still upset.
To me, this was a good thing. This showed how much he cares. Watching him practice the last couple of weeks but not declare himself ready to go, you wondered.
Surely, Anderson knows at least a portion of the public is calling him soft and unreliable. This is his fourth injury in four winters, the fourth time he's disappeared when his team needs him for a stretch run. But this injury -- a deep bone bruise that has kept him from playing for more than six weeks -- is the most confounding. To us and to him.
"The best word is frustrated, that I'm not feeling as good as I hoped to be feeling," Anderson had said earlier. "We're trying everything we possibly can. At this point ... short of ... I don't know, there might be some other solutions we can try, but we haven't gone down that path yet. I'm just trying to get back as quick as possible."
Anderson says he'll have to play through the pain at some point, but there was never a chance it would be this game against the Sabres. Super Dave Cameron didn't even know if Anderson would be available to start Friday.
"I didn't ask him," the Senators coach said in the morning. "He's going to back up. There was no discussion on who's starting tonight. I was going to take (Andrew) Hammond out (Wednesday) because it was back-to-back, and he's tired, but sometimes the best decisions are the ones you don't make."
Anderson is still not comfortable playing with his bruised hand -- ultimately he may have to go down that other "path". But by dressing him now as the backup, it appears the team is thinking at least part of the problem is in his head.
That too would be painful for Anderson.
-The Ottawa Sun
Not with whatever's going on in his right hand, we still don't understand that. But the pain he's going through while letting his teammates down again -- and perhaps the feeling that no one gets it.
"It's killing me inside to not play," Anderson said Friday morning, his eyes starting to water. "To watch, and not be able to ... (long pause) ... and not be able to be there for the guys.
"It hurts."
With that, the scrum broke up and Anderson turned to take care of some business at his stall. I hung back for a second, and when I leaned over to say something to him, I noticed his upper lip was trembling. He was crying. Not bawling like a baby, not weeping uncontrollably with tears rolling down his face. But an emotional, choked up sob.
He smiled at the joke I cracked, but he was obviously still upset.
To me, this was a good thing. This showed how much he cares. Watching him practice the last couple of weeks but not declare himself ready to go, you wondered.
Surely, Anderson knows at least a portion of the public is calling him soft and unreliable. This is his fourth injury in four winters, the fourth time he's disappeared when his team needs him for a stretch run. But this injury -- a deep bone bruise that has kept him from playing for more than six weeks -- is the most confounding. To us and to him.
"The best word is frustrated, that I'm not feeling as good as I hoped to be feeling," Anderson had said earlier. "We're trying everything we possibly can. At this point ... short of ... I don't know, there might be some other solutions we can try, but we haven't gone down that path yet. I'm just trying to get back as quick as possible."
Anderson says he'll have to play through the pain at some point, but there was never a chance it would be this game against the Sabres. Super Dave Cameron didn't even know if Anderson would be available to start Friday.
"I didn't ask him," the Senators coach said in the morning. "He's going to back up. There was no discussion on who's starting tonight. I was going to take (Andrew) Hammond out (Wednesday) because it was back-to-back, and he's tired, but sometimes the best decisions are the ones you don't make."
Anderson is still not comfortable playing with his bruised hand -- ultimately he may have to go down that other "path". But by dressing him now as the backup, it appears the team is thinking at least part of the problem is in his head.
That too would be painful for Anderson.
-The Ottawa Sun
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