Sens get closer to discard bin

NHL: Solving arena snafu ‘vital’ to future

When the Ottawa Senators released their impossibly awkward hype video in September, the one in which owner Eugene Melnyk described his team as kind of in the dumpster, there was a moment, other than that one, that stood out.

Melnyk tells defenceman Mark Borowiecki — who is ostensibly his interviewer but in practice is a sounding board — that people have wondered about the future of the team in Ottawa.

“The franchise is not going anywhere,” Melnyk says. “That’s, like, totally solid.”

It turns out that as these assurances were being uttered, the deal for a new downtown arena for the Senators was already in a complete shambles. That would be the same arena, as part of the redevelopment of the Lebreton lands next to the Ottawa River, that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said was “vital” to the future of the team.

The Lebreton deal isn’t technically dead, but all that’s left is to shovel soil over the corpse. When one partner sues another for $700 million, as Melnyk has done to developer John Ruddy, that is pretty much the end of that. And so, while Melnyk continues to insist that he has every intention of keeping his team in Ottawa and pursuing a downtown arena, Senators fans could be forgiven for wondering if this is the beginning of the end.

Arenas are notoriously difficult to finance and build, for the simple reason that the economic case for them, to use Melnyk’s phrase, is kind of in the dumpster. You need a few hundred million dollars and in the end you have a building that will be booked for 41 nights a year, plus some exhibition games, and as many concerts as you can schedule.

People spend money on this stuff, but it’s the same discretionary money they would have spent anyway in the local economy, so the net gain is minimal, in terms of return on investment in the building. Sometimes governments will throw all that aside in hopes of luring a sports team with a shiny new arena (hello, Quebec City), but that it obviously not part of the business case here. The Sens are already in Ottawa. Well, Ottawa-ish.

The trick, as wealthy sports owners have figured out, is to make the newarena play part of a neighbourhood revitalization or some such sales pitch, with the building folded into larger plans that include other commercial and retail developments and maybe a casino (hello, Edmonton).