The official number is in.
According to Ian Mendes, vice president of communications for the Ottawa Senators, 37 Brady Tkachuk jerseys were tossed on the ice by disgruntled fans last Wednesday when the former Senators captain made his highly anticipated return to Canadian Tire Centre following his summer trade to the Florida Panthers.
In his weekly column, Mendes gave an update on the jerseys and if they will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club in Ottawa, as Tkachuk said they would be.
“I reached out to the Panthers on the weekend to give them the total number of jerseys we collected, as Brady had indicated he wanted to make a donation to BGC Ottawa around those jerseys,” wrote Mendes. “For the record, a lot of those jerseys were in damaged or unusable condition, so we’re not going to physically pass them along to BGC Ottawa.”
Despite scoring the game’s opening goal, Tkachuk was heavily booed and pestered with numerous creative chants throughout the night as the Panthers would go on to lose 5-1.
Ahead of the game, Tkachuk said he was going to donate every No. 7 jersey thrown on the ice to the Boys and Girls Club in Ottawa, a charity he worked closely with during his playing days in Canada’s capital.
“I mean, now, just talking with our team and going to be talking with the Boys and Girls Club that, you know, every jersey that gets thrown on the ice, it’s going to get donated to a friend at the Boys and Girls Club in Ottawa,” Tkachuk said on his Wingmen podcast with brother and teammate Matthew Tkachuk. “So, I don’t recommend doing it.”
Tkachuk, 27, has seven goals and five assists over 12 games this season with the Panthers.