Sens’ feel-good run touchy subject
Season’s on the line but cranky fans really should lighten up
On Monday afternoon, with the Ottawa Senators down 3-2 in the Eastern Conference final, the man who runs the Sens-Nation blog — his name is Owen, an Ottawa professional who, like at least one other source in this story, prefers his last name be omitted so that he can continue to occasionally swear about his and other teams — pulled up Ticketmaster. The team didn’t sell out Game 3 of the second round; Game 6 against the Penguins was Tuesday. What did he find? There were a pile of tickets available, and the secondary market looked grim, too. Oh, dear.
“I was curious,” said Owen. “It’s been a storyline all season. Can’t believe it still is.”
As the Senators have made an unexpected run to the conference final, a side issue had already emerged: the prickliness of the Senators fan base. On Twitter, innocuous comments — especially if they were, ahem, made by anybody based in Toronto — attracted a small sea of sensitivity. Point out Ottawa played two lower seeds as part of the silly NHL playoff schedule? Point out other teams had injury problems? Point out defenceman Marc Methot’s nickname is “Meth”? As Bob Cole would say: Here they come, Harry.
Every fan base has its idiots, its Twitter maniacs, its rabidity. But every one has an essential character, too. Ottawa’s has seemed . . . oversensitive. If so — and some will dispute this, rather strongly, even over-sensitively — well, there are reasons.
“We have this super-defensive mentality right now, like the fan base feels slighted and disrespected throughout the whole run,” says Dave, another Ottawa professional who runs the fan blog SensChirp.ca. “First they were lucky to make the playoffs because they were the only team with a negative goal differential, and then they were an easy out against the Bruins, and if they got past the Bruins they’re definitely not going to beat the Rangers. There are a lot of good storylines around this team, but there was always the negative side that the national media — it’s the negative storylines that keep catching on, for some reason.”
We can argue some of the storylines — good ones have been written and broadcast, and there are real questions about attendance, and the team CAN be boring, and may be at least partly mirage.
And hey, plenty of Sens fans criticize the team more than any outsider, and just hate it when the outsiders come in.
But there are structural reasons, too.
“Ottawa’s a small town, relative to some of the other league powers,” says Graeme Nichols, who runs the blog the6thsens.com. “It’s a budget team. The owner is a bit goofy, quirky and eccentric. You get put under a microscope a little. The team didn’t sell out the first games versus the Rangers. And nobody expected to have this kind of postseason success, and the coverage isn’t necessarily about that Cinderella run, it’s: Oh, they’re boring. They’re not selling tickets. That’s going to grate on some people.”
“But at the same time I think Ottawa has to look at itself in the mirror and say: There are some insecurities there, and they’ve been there for a while. Personally speaking, I don’t care if people don’t perceive us as Canada’s team. I think that’s goofy to begin with.”
“Being in between Toronto and Montreal — I mean, imagine if you put an NHL team in Red Deer?” says Ian Mendes, who hosts the midday radio show on TSN1200 here. “How long would it take that team to get ahold of its fan base and convert people? I know people say: You’ve had this team for a quarter century. I think this might take 75 years to get this to where everyone wants it to be.”
Indeed, people here over a certain age grew up as Habs fans, or Leafs fans, or even Bruins fans, and the conversion has taken time. And it is Canada’s littlest sister team, with a goofy owner and skinflint money and “Ottawa Senators Spartan Introduction” on YouTube and a ludicrously out-of-the-way rink. Those have been a defining characteristic of the market, too.
But also, if Senators fans reflexively shout at national media — much of which is based in Toronto — well, it’s at least partly Toronto’s fault.
“There’s a constant struggle there,” says Dave of SensChirp. “Because Senators fans are used to having to defend their team against fans of those markets. I know Senators fans that won’t even go to Montreal and Toronto games anymore, because that environment just isn’t for everybody. It’s 50-50, and there’s bickering back and forth, and I think that’s where that mentality comes from. And the whole losing to the Leafs four times in the playoffs thing — I mean, we can say that those wounds have healed, but that was a huge setback for a franchise that was trying to establish itself.”
“We can deny it all we want, but it’s there,” says Mendes. “So whenever the national media, the Toronto media, weighs in on Ottawa, the ghosts of that run are always lingering in the background, and it plays on everyone’s psyche here. Quite frankly, I think the Leafs did quite a number on the fan base here, but I don’t blame the fan base here for being a bit fragile. Imagine you had a great team ready to win the Stanley Cup, and four times you got taken out by the same team that’s down the road.”
So, they have been pushing back. But that might not be a bad thing. It might actually be growth.
“I find that Ottawa fans are kind of jumping on people. I don’t mind that,” says Senators fan Shaila Anwar, a co-host of the show That’s What She Said on TSN1200. “It’s showing a little bit of spark. We’ve always been talked about as quiet Ottawa, and milquetoast Ottawa, the fans don’t really care, they’re all Leafs fans ... so, I don’t totally mind it. It shows that there’s a little bit more spark in the fan base than we maybe got credit for.”
“I’ve had to catch myself on that, because I don’t want to define my enjoyment of this based on fighting off the criticisms along the way,” says Dave. “This is all bonus hockey for us at this point.”
The fan base is growing up here, maybe. Of course, then came the potential for empty seats for the biggest game of the season, and worse it will be mentioned by the Toronto jerks, and ... well, if Senators fans want to shout, go for it. Live the moment. If nothing else, it won’t be boring. It will show they care.