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Sens Fans Losing, But Must Never Lose Faith
by SENShobo on 01/12/09 at 08:28 AM ET
Comments (3)
One more game, and the Ottawa Senators will catch up with the rest of the League, reaching the halfway point of their abysmal season.
In the front office, rumblings persist that the team is moments away from its first shake-up of the season.
Even with the fans, grumblings continue to grow, supporters uncertain how to cheer in troubled times.
From the Ottawa Sun,
Elliott was apparently promised at the beginning of the season that if he went down to Binghamton and played well, he would be rewarded with an opportunity with the big club. After leading the AHL in wins, being named that league’s goaltender of the month for December and being selected as the starter for the Canadian team in the AHL all-star game, Elliott lived up to his end of the bargain.
The Senators are living up to their end of it now by giving him a chance.
The Senators need to know if the 23-year-old is ready to play at the NHL level—he certainly looked like it in the loss to the Rangers, supplying a big stop on a breakaway in the first minute of the third period—and his status will decide Gerber’s immediate future and perhaps that of coach Craig Hartsburg.
One NHL scout at Saturday’s game said he thought the Senators put in a good effort, but they seemed at times to be working without much direction, particularly on the power play.
Gerber will not be back next season, no question that the team’s eight-figure experiment in trying to fish a number one goaltender out of the League deemed a failure. Not that Gerber didn’t provide a great display at times, helping the team to a dozen wins with only a few losses leading up to their Cup run, and showing a valiant effort during last year’s playoff sweep, but salary and consistency just didn’t find a marriage that worked in this situation.
From the Ottawa Citizen, many voices on the confused fan support,
“I try to watch them, but it’s more casual. Before, if I missed a game, I actually missed it. Now if I miss a game, I’ll watch the highlights of them losing again, and not regret not watching them.”
Mr. Grassie is in peril of joining that growing group of Sens Army AWOLs, fans who can’t bear to watch the team’s rapid decline from first to worst (OK, second to second-worst).
“It’s kind of back to the way it was before,” he says. “Even making it to the finals — and we didn’t even win — it seems like it’s a fluke now, like we didn’t make any progress.
“I’m less interested than before. At the start of this year, I had the same kind of intensity, but losing every game with a low effort level, it turns you off a bit.”
....
This may be the year, says Ben Falvo, that we find out whether Ottawa is really a major-league sports town, or if it’s merely lousy with fairweather fans.“Attendance always takes a hit when a team’s not doing well,” he says, “Ottawa’s not unique that way. But I’m hoping there have been enough Sens fans created over these last 15 years to fill Scotiabank Place.”
Mr. Falvo, who co-founded Sens Underground podcasts when the team was at its peak, believes the failures of the Ottawa Rough Riders and Renegade football clubs, and the Triple-A baseball Ottawa Lynx, do not serve as warning shots to the bow of the Sens’ franchise.
“This is more of a hockey town, which may be one reason the Lynx didn’t survive,” he says. “Football? Back in the day, the Rough Riders sold out all the time. But look at the ownership we had. People just got tired of it. But hockey … I think this city is a sports town when it comes to hockey. I mean, look at the world juniors.
“Am I angry? Yes. I’m feeling it just like every other Sens fan, whether they’re bandwagonners or not. But I’m still a fan and will always be.
“On paper, the Senators are a decent team. On paper, they should not be that bad.”
Is it a fluke that the Sens were challenging the Ducks for the Stanley Cup but two seasons ago? Better yet, is it a fluke that of all the options available nearly two decades ago, the League chose to award Ottawa fans with their first franchise since the great depression bankrupted their last outing? Fans could always suit up and gas up to get out to a Habs or Leafs game, who says it needs to be a team here in Ottawa that they support? Only 20,000 people get a firsthand look at the action; what difference would it make to the others, watching the Sens on tv as opposed to any other team?
To some, it’s a wonder why teams will mortgage their future on Stanley Cup Playoff runs, and yet the ‘fairweather’ fan base that Ottawa seems to be seeing more than the steady one will explain it all. Those struggling franchises don’t have a full budget that Mr. Melnyk provides, nor the ease of access to fans that Canada and more hockey-oriented areas can offer up, and yet they know well that a single run, single burst of hope can make all the difference: just look at Washington, where once attendance was struggling, but now the NHL’s most dynamic player is leading a charge that inspires countless fans, old and new.
What is left for Sens fans? The playoff appearance streak will end this season, and you cannot tell whether it will begin again one year hence. The team has failed to achieve that success, for whatever reason, but it still remains that they are Ottawa’s team. I have seen the hats, jerseys, and television sets elsewhere; they are more than Ottawa’s team. The World Juniors showed many draft-eligible players and hockey fans around the world what kind of fan support Ottawa can give, where is it now?
Support can and should come from more than just a win. Raucous cheers should erupt far louder, longer, and prouder when events occur similar to Foligno squeezing through a pair of Detroit defenders to pick up the puck and score on Osgood, or when Ruutu took up the fight and showed a machine-gun punch a couple weeks back. You can’t and don’t want to trade away the whole team, but they will be the players you see next year, show them they have something to fight for. Show the UFAs who are considering playing here that support can be found in tough times as well as good. Do perhaps the hardest thing, and continue to cheer each little success the Sens have.
If Ottawa is going to have just a fairweather fan base, considering we aren’t south Florida, there couldn’t be a worse endorsement to show potential new fans, new players, and new staff. You can pretend that you don’t get excited for each goal, each bone-rattling check, each dramatic save, but to really save this team, heal it as fast as possible, the quickest cure within your grasp is to end that silence as soon and as dramatically as possible. The spartan from the playoff run may not have inspired fans as much as he would have hoped, but it remains that he still had it right.
Go Sens Go.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Comments
Dollars are the easiest way to scold a franchise, but there are better ways. It could well harken back to the old days of the Colosseum in Rome, where the Gladiators would fight, but the cheering and jeering of the fans would always remind the warriors what kinds of fights were appreciated, what kinds were not wanted, and of course whether or not to deliver those final blows.
It is sad that creative, thoughtful cheering and campaigns are not more common. It could begin as simple as cheering even mundane acts, body checks, good puck pursuit, but go further to help show the organization what kinds of plays, powerplays, and tactics are appreciated and which ones are not (should the team ever devolve to a pure-trap based system, I imagine the jeers would be forced out).
Simply choosing not to attend only says ‘something’ is wrong, but never what. What makes the NFL so great? Many franchises can boast season ticket sales that beat most NHL total sales, as a percentage, even with stadiums three to four times the size. Even as the Detroit Lions went 0-16 this season, the first time it’s ever been done, fans continued to show up. That shows that they want a team (critical to many franchises at this time in the NHL), and that they can support the good plays, even if those cheer-worthy battles don’t lead to a victory on the field in the end.
Mistakes will always be made by management (even Detroit let go of Kyle Quincy, who’s showing great form now in L.A., and the Senators had the 68th pick in the year that Steve Mason was taken 69th), and as a game of chess that this League is, especially with the salary cap, you can’t expect the ‘plan’ to be revealed, lest the rest of the League subsequently fail to cooperate and ruin the plan.
We have a hockey market that can cheer and support a team and its players, even if it isn’t fully happy. Even parents know to applaud their child’s successes through their larger failures. We have an owner who is not trying to cheapskate the system and pinch pennies, nor is he willing to make the team a joke by turning our management into a revolving door operation that makes others in this League the subject of much negative press and team-building success. This is a lot to be proud of. Cliche, but the night is always darkest before the dawn.
Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 01/12/09 at 12:20 PM ET
I have to disagree with Fred Taylor’s (Dave the rave) assesment of lack of effort on the part of the Senators. This is a detrimental catch phrase that has been rearing it’s ugly head for quite some time now. I couldn’t in my wildest dreams assume that these players weren’t giving their all every game, granted I believe their effort is not being directed properly but this is a by product of individualism and desperation.
Posted by souwester on 01/12/09 at 08:50 PM ET
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Who is SENShobo?
Fully addicted to hockey, Andrew Dodds finds it safe to live in the alleys, considering his allegiance to the Ottawa Senators in the middle of Leaf County. He tries to bring you as many worthwhile Sens stories as he can find, along with his musings on the team and the NHL in general; musings indeed since he is but a humble hockey hobo.
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SENShobo. I returned recently to live in Ottawa after being away for many years, some of that time spent in South Florida.
I can tell you first hand about a franchise that was so badly managed it went from being a Cup Finalist and a fan favorite to a doormat that was shunned.
Hockey is perceived as entertainment by many people. They may not be connoisseurs of the game, but they enjoy the skill, speed and excitement that are unique to hockey.
If the product isn’t deemed worthy by people as a way to spend their entertainment dollars, they won’t support the team.
In traditional markets, there is a heritage that keeps fans coming back. But even in traditional markets, the fanbase can erode if the product is not good.
In non-traditional markets, the fan base is, at best, fluid, and dependent on the perceived quality of the team’s performance. Other factors come into play, but they are too complex to discuss here.
As an Ottawa native, and having watched hockey here since the days of the Hull-Ottawa Canadiens, I have seen that hockey fans in this city are exceptionally enthusiastic. Perhaps not in the same obvious way as Montreal or Toronto fans, but the WJC crowds, as an example, demonstrated once again just how much Ottawa loves the sport.
IMHO they have been very patient with the Senators as an expansion team, and certainly appear, even as I watched them from afar, to rally behind the home team.
But following the Cup Final with the Ducks, Ottawa management made a series of critical errors.
They failed to address the weaknesses in the team, and failed to apply the lessons that should have been learned from the loss to Anaheim.
By not improving in key areas, and by locking themselves into massive contracts, the Ottawa Senators painted themselves into the corner where they are now.
It is understandable that fans are showing their displeasure.
The Senators have to show why they are worthy of the fan’s sports dollar, plain and simple.
Right now, they are not showing that.
A scan of the blogosphere, radio call-in shows and newspaper polls will tell you fans will accept the re-tooling of the team if they are convinced there IS a plan to rebuild. And IF they fell the team is giving its best efforts.
But neither a plan, nor the effort, appear to be present.
Posted by davetherave from Ottawa, Canada on 01/12/09 at 09:20 AM ET