Ottawa Senators fans wave towels in the air before the start of Game 4 against the Toronto Maple Leafs in first round NHL playoff action in Ottawa, on April 26.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
The Ottawa Senators may not be the biggest story in town today, but at least they are still a story.
And they would win a unanimous vote of approval this election day – right up until the horn sounds, whatever the outcome, Tuesday night in Toronto for Game 5 of Round 1 in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Three overtime matches in a row, and finally the Senators won one when 22-year-old Jake Sanderson, quickly emerging as one of the league’s great defencemen, fired a long shot from the point that fooled giant Toronto goaltender Anthony Stolarz.
Let the Senators flags remain on the cars. Don’t toss away the white “Heart Over Hype” towels that graced the seats at the Canadian Tire Centre quite yet. “Heart” finally won a game over the incessant “Hype” of the Maple Leafs.
It is hard for those who do not come from Ottawa to understand how fickle and fragile professional sports can be in the Canadian capital.
In recent years, football has failed and returned. Lacrosse failed and is this year attempting a return. Triple A baseball soared and collapsed. In the early 1970s, the town lost its World Hockey Association franchise, the Ottawa Nationals.
Women’s professional hockey, the Ottawa Charge, has so far proved instantly popular, with the team getting record crowds as it heads toward the playoffs. We can only hope that this holds for their future and for the brand-new Ottawa Rapid FC in the Northern Super League.
The Ottawa record for hanging on to professional sports franchises is … not inspiring.
One of the few successful Ottawa sports entrepreneurs, Jeff Hunt, once told the CBC that it’s a struggle in a city where “We’re competing more with Netflix and the couch” than with other teams.
Even before Netflix, sports were a tough sell in Ottawa. Sports historian Steve Rennie notes that the new capital’s first baseball club was formed in Confederation year, 1867, named the New Dominion Club of Ottawa and promptly lost a game against Ogdensburg, New York, 141-20. The club soon disbanded.
The Ottawa Senators, for the record, were once the very definition of success. They’ve won the Stanley Cup 11 championships since the team was originally formed in 1903.
They boasted several of the game’s greatest stars: Frank Nighbor, Punch Broadbent, Cy Denneny, Georges Boucher, King Clancy and goaltender Alec Connell.
In 1934, however, they finished dead last in the league, attendance so dwindled that owners had to borrow $60,000 to cover payroll and other costs. An editorial in the April 7, 1934, Citizen warned the team cannot “go on losing money, and so, local fans must accept the situation as gracefully as they can.”
Unfortunately, the fans have never been particularly gracious.
They almost lost the Senators a second time at the turn of this century, only to have the franchise saved by Toronto businessman Eugene Melnyk, whose “jersey” now rides the rafters alongside such Senators greats as Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Phillips and Chris Neil.
Unlike the players, however, Melnyk never found love among the fickle fans of Bytown. The team did have an exceptional season in 2007, yet failed to re-claim the Stanley Cup and, in the eight years since a good run in 2017, could not even reach the playoffs. Fans bailed to the point where a massive tarp was used to cover up a block of seats in the arena.
Melnyk died three years ago and new owner, Michael Andlauer, has transformed the club with a revamped organization. He brought back much-admired previous team president Cyril Leeder, hired Steve Staios as general manager and Travis Green as coach, added the much-loved Alfredsson to the coaching staff and even brought back anthem singer Lyndon Slewidge.
The fans have shown their appreciation with sellout crowds, the tarp a distant memory.
The team owner has already had a great spring, his Andlauer Health Group selling to UPS this past week for a stunning US$1.6 billion. A Stanley Cup run would make it all the more enjoyable.
The Canadian Tire Centre has never been as raucous as it was Thursday and Saturday night for the two overtime games.
“Fans want to back a winner,” Jeff Hunt told the CBC. “They want to be proud of their team. There’s an initial bump or honeymoon period with new franchises and an element of excitement and novelty, but after that you have to start delivering.”
This young team has delivered, improving by 19 points this past season and reaching the playoffs after seven fallow years out of them. The fans have loved it.
Tuesday night back in Toronto, Game 5 may or may not decide matters. Whatever the outcome, the 2024-25 Senators have delighted the fickle and fragile fans of Ottawa.
“It’s going to be the biggest, hardest game,” says Brady Tkachuk, the team’s enormously popular captain.
“It gives people time, even for just a couple of days, to enjoy it,” former Senators defenceman and current broadcaster Marc Methot said on social media.
“The team took another step forward this season. Don’t lose sight of that.”