Better to go with the devil you know, I guess?
Earlier today, in a cramped boardroom on Elgin Street, the National Capital Commission made a decision that will pave the way for a downtown home for the Ottawa Senators.
A huge day for for the city and a pivotal moment for this franchise.
With hundreds of media in attendance and citizens looking on from around the city of Ottawa, the advisory committee named RendezVous LeBreton’s “Illumination LeBreton” as the preferred bid for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats.
Based on the talk leading up to today’s announcement, it’s tough to say that the decision comes as a surprise.
The DCDLS group put forward a strong proposal and certainly gave the NCC a lot to think about but in the end the NCC went with the more predictable outcome.
Safe and predictable. Ottawa in a nutshell, really.
Okay, that’s probably not fair.
The RendezVous LeBreton group obviously put together a great proposal. They seemed to have a better grasp on the realities of the city and came forward with a clear vision of how the site should be used. While they didn’t have the big ideas of the other proposal, their balanced approach including an established anchor and supporting residential, retail and green space was exactly what the NCC was looking for.
A place people could live rather than just visit.
That’s not to say that the RendezVous bid was perfect, in the eyes of the NCC. In a long and drawn out presentation, Steven Willis, the Executive Director of Capital Planning, made it pretty clear that there were advantages and weaknesses to each of the proposals.
What was sort of odd is that despite the lengthy explanation, we didn’t really hear much about how the actual scoring ended up. In what has been a surprisingly transparent process, you would hope that those details are ultimately shared.
In many ways, today was the easy part. The real heavy lifting starts when the two sides sit down to negotiate the specifics of what will be an incredibly complicated development. With so many different interests involved there will be road blocks and plenty of them.
One thing is for certain though- with today’s decision, the path for a downtown arena is as clear and defined as it has ever been.
2021 can’t come fast enough.
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And while this is an obvious win on the business side of things, there’s also the potential for a short-term boost for the hockey team. Not only does it give them some positive messaging to rally around but there could be some form of boost to the team’s operating budget.
In his comments following the announcement, Eugene Melnyk acknowledged (for the first time I can remember) that the hockey operations side of things had been running on a shoestring budget. It was a surprising admission and one that directly contradicted their previous assertion that they were “spending smart” with a focus on scouting and player development.
I don’t think any of us ever really believed the Senators were doing anything special in this area but it was significant to hear Melnyk admit they had been cutting corners. He suggested that winning the bid could mean changes in that area as early as this summer.
I know, I know. We’ve all heard it before. Now it’s up to Melnyk to show some action on that front.
And on top of his admission on short-changing the hockey ops side of things, Melnyk also seemed to be open to discussing another topic that had slipped from his vocabulary the last few years. And that’s the possibility of winning the Stanley Cup. He gave himself like a decade to get it done but for the first time in awhile, Melnyk was at least talking about wanting to build a winner.
This was obviously a big day for the organization and it was a huge day for Eugene Melnyk personally.
But in all the excitement, it was easy to notice a somewhat subdued reaction from the fan base. I think we want to be excited about this and in some ways we are. But for all the obvious benefits today’s announcement has off the ice, this fan base desperately wants to see some of that carry over to the on-ice product.
And not in five years. Now.
It’s up to Ownership to help make that a reality.
