The off days...

I committed the ultimate sin today.

I’ve been in a lot of dressing rooms in my career, but I certainly looked like a rookie today.

I am very familiar with the rule of avoiding the logo on the dressing room floor, but I somehow forgot it when I decided to make a phone call to reporter Elliotte Friedman to tell him the players were available for interviews.

When I was dialing his number, I suddenly saw Sens’ vice-president of communications, Phil Legault, approach me. He grabbed me and pushed me to the side.

I looked down and realized I was stepping on the Sens’ logo. In the hockey world, it’s an offense similar to defacing a religious icon. The worst part was the evidence was plain for everyone to see: I left a big black mark on the cleanest white spot.

I couldn’t believe what I had done. Word got around quickly and when I entered the press room for the Bryan Murray interview, the cameramen looked at me and cracked a few jokes at my expense.

“I heard they aren’t going to let you in the room anymore,” one said.

Legault wasn’t angry at the incident, telling me a number of people step on the logo during the morning scrum, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

I’ll keep a wary eye on the logo every time I step into that dressing room from now on.

If you work for Hockey Night, you spend every day at the rink. Even the off nights.

The playoffs aren’t a time to relax and with Game 2 tomorrow, Friedman, senior producer Sherali Najak, cameraman Mark Punga and I went to the Sens’ practice facility – which is right across from Scotiabank Place – to get footage for a two-minute piece to air on tonight’s pre-game show.

The worst part of the whole experience is the waiting. You’re waiting for the players to finish. Then you’re waiting for the press relations manager to give you the okay to enter the dressing room. Then you’re waiting for the coach to arrive. You need a lot of patience at this job.

But at least the entire day had one big laugh. Watching Lightning coach John Tortorella trying to conduct an impromptu press conference in the referees’ room was worth the long day.

Dozens of reporters and cameramen were sandwiched in a room designed to accommodate four people. It was like watching salmon struggle upstream.

After we got all of our footage, Punga and I drove to CBC Ottawa for our feed. By the time we were done it was 4 p.m. and we were starving. We hadn’t eaten all day. We headed to a restaurant for a bite and then returned home in time for Friedman’s piece.