Article content

When an Ottawa sports team starts over, the bar is set low on expectations.

We’ve seen it repeatedly.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Gee-Gees hockey team is turning heads in its first season of play Back to video

The Ottawa Senators, CFL Redblacks and Carleton Ravens hockey and football programs all experienced re-launches and a losing first season. Better days followed.

None of their early history prepared us for the incredible story being written by the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees men’s hockey team.

The Gee-Gees are playing their first season since being shut down late in the 2013-14 schedule following a scandalous off-ice incident in Thunder Bay. Two players have since been charged with sexual assault and face trial in August this year.

Following a full year of dormancy, with one more to come, a relaunch committee that included former Senators president Cyril Leeder announced the hockey club would start again in 2016-17 in a league now called U Sports (formerly CIS).

Jacques Martin, the former Senators head coach, was part of a selection committee that appointed Patrick Grandmaitre the new head coach in the summer of 2015 for a completely revamped hockey program. Today, Grandmaitre, 37, a Gatineau native who once captained a championship St. Francis Xavier team, has already led his group to a clinched playoff position.