GATINEAU, Que. — People who paid to watch one hockey game were watching another.
The place to be for a hockey fan in the national capital region on Wednesday when the Stanley Cup playoffs started probably wasn't venerable old Centre Robert-Guertin, judging from the turnout of 1,946 for a Rimouski Océanic-Gatineau Olympiques QMHJL tilt that conflicted with the Senators-Canadiens game. It was however, the most interesting place to be. The red line at Old Bob, one of the few remaining honest-to-goodness barns still in use in major junior, might as well have been the fault line in a rivalry that divides Ottawa.