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| Jason SPEZZA (SPEHT-zuh, JAY-suhn) |
Ottawa Senators |
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'PROJECT SPEZZA' PAYS OFF
Wayne Scanlan writes in the Ottawa Citizen, "Jacques Martin would probably call the evolution of Ottawa's No. 19 "part of the process." A matter of maturity. Bryan Murray, the Senators head coach-turned general manager, had a hand in delivering the promise last season. But it is John Paddock, Jason Spezza's third NHL head coach, who knows better than anyone how much effort and patience was involved in Project Spezza. For Spezza's entire six-year professional career, Paddock has been on the kid's coaching staff for all or part of each season, either in Ottawa or Binghamton of the AHL, where the lanky prospect first showed up for duty in 2002, miffed at not being an automatic on Ottawa's NHL roster ... Just yesterday, Paddock, an old-school hockey man with strong feelings about how the game should be played, heaped large praise on Spezza, in one little phrase. "That's a real hockey player," Paddock said." |
FACING OFF WITH JASON SPEZZA
David Amber writes on ESPN.com, "Jason Spezza has been a lot of things – a former model and teenage phenom among the most notable. Today, with his team leading the Eastern Conference, his main focus is on becoming a Stanley Cup champion. In this week's Facing Off, we ask the 24-year-old Senators star how he has dealt with last season's loss in the finals, why he's no longer an Atlanta Falcons fan, whom he considers the best player in the game and why one day he might be a Broadway star." |
SPEZZA AMONG FEW NHL'ERS STICKING WITH WOOD
Allen Panzeri writes in the Ottawa Citizen, "With Sherwood-Drolet shifting production of its wooden hockey stick from Sherbrooke, Que., to Estonia and China in January, Ottawa Senators centre Jason Spezza foresees the day when he has to change to a composite stick. He figures he'll just have to swallow hard, take some of the new-style sticks home over the summer and get used to them ... Spezza's okay for a while, though. In part because he has a sponsorship deal with the company, Sherwood-Drolet will continue to custom-make his wooden sticks in Sherbrooke. Spezza figures he goes through more than 300 in a season." |
SPEZZA USED TO THE LIMELIGHT
Larry Wigge writes on NHL.com, "Jason Spezza was thrown into the limelight while he was still in the cradle. At 1, he won a baby contest. Pictures of his blond curls made him the poster boy for Baby, a Broadway musical back in the summer of 1984. It was Jason's photo that went on the marquee. A TV commercial for Minute Maid followed. Then there was modeling for clothing for Woolco and K-mart. Those billboards he mugged for ended when he was 9 or 10 and his parents, Rino, his first hockey coach, and Donna, wanted Jason to be a regular boy ... and do the things other boys did while growing up. But there was clearly never anything regular about Spezza. He's good at just about anything he does. And hockey was his dream." |
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