Re: Ottawa Senators
Originally Posted by
agentzero
While I agree with some of that BMPanarin, the business community in Ottawa is really small and with 30% of the town as civil servants who cannot accept gifts, the presence in and participation to corporate boxes etc. is pretty thin. I don’t think people in this town know their pro hockey as much as other markets but they do know their minor hockey and it is one of the rare locations where a junior team does well in the presence of a pro team. Mississauga, Brampton and Toronto couldn’t swing that despite massive populations.
Reminds me of the Habs of the late 90s. Those were some long, long years. The sens don’t have the tradition of the Habs.. nor the widespread fan base, so I think the team is in serious trouble.
I don't know; their fan base is as knowledgeable as any other. You might find more individual knowledgeable fans in a larger market, but that's just scale. There's a bunch of dummies in every market too.
What has the team in trouble is that Melnyk isn't giving them any reason to care about the team. It's been a long, slow slide that was masked by a few unlikely playoff runs (pesky sens run, hamburglar run, ecf run). He's spent the better part of a decade saying he's not willing to spend and that they have a low budget, he's threatened to move them, he's called them out for not attending when they've had some of the best attendance in the league over the last decade, etc. He has ruined their brand. He has ruined the downtown arena deal. he has ruined the team's relationship with the local media. He has alienated the fans, who still care enough to buy billboards protesting him. He has made the team one of the least desirable places for players. By all accounts he is terrible to deal with, and incredibly stubborn. The best thing for him to do would to put Dorion back in charge of scouting, hire a real GM and President, and not get involved. Not in operations, not in the media, nothing. He needs to be totally hands-off and leave it to the pros. The guy is not a hockey person but thinks he knows what he's doing, and thinks he's doing a good job on top of that. It's hopeless until he gets the message.
10-team H2H points keeper league, keep 4
G: 2, A: 2, SOG: 0.15, Hit: 0.15, Block: 0.15, W: 3.5, Sv: 0.025, SO: 6
7 F, 3 D, 1 G
2022-2023 Roster:
F: Connor McDavid, Steven Stamkos, Artemi Panarin, Jack Hughes, Mark Stone, Josh Norris, Tyler Bertuzzi, PL Dubois, Sam Bennett, Tom Wilson (IR)
D: Kris Letang, Drew Doughty, Brent Burns, Shayne Gostisbehere
G: Ilya Sorokin, Thatcher Demko