Melnyk Out.
Two simple words that have in many ways, defined the last three years in the once proud history of the Ottawa Senators.
While fan frustration with Eugene Melnyk probably dates back as far as 2012, it’s in the last few years that it has come to engulf the Sens fan experience. The players, the results and the general feeling of excitement that traditionally comes with being a fan of a pro sports team has regularly taken a back seat to the intense resentment fans in the Nation’s Capital feel towards the owner of their hockey team.
Sure, there are moments where we can distract ourselves.
Those times when Thomas Chabot glides effortlessly from one end of the rink to the other or when Brady Tkachuk prickishly smiles in a goal mouth scramble or the days when you simply get lost in the beauty of Ottawa’s 2020 draft pick collection. In those moments, you can almost forget about the tire fire raging at the top of the organization.
But no matter how hard we try, it always seems to come back to him.
While many have tried, it’s difficult to really capture the origins of fan frustration and effectively articulate how things got so bad, so fast. There was a time when it was just run-of-the-mill fan angst but in the last few years especially, it has become so much more than that.
Daniel Alfredsson was the tip of the iceberg and the Parliament Hill rant was the last straw. Everything since then has been piling on.
At the same time, there is a significant portion of the fan base that is just tired of it all. These are people that recognize the issues with ownership but make a conscious effort to block out the noise. Outside of Jack Maxwell, nobody is pro-Melnyk at this point. Some people just don’t want to talk about it anymore. Hockey is a hobby after-all and if you can’t find ways to occasionally enjoy your hobby, then it’s probably best to do something different with your free time.
And if you’re looking for them, there are still plenty of legitimate reasons for optimism.
The current edition of the Ottawa Senators is stocked with young talent to a degree previously unseen in the history of the franchise. Star-potential and depth exists throughout the organization and whenever the league gets around to holding the 2020 Entry Draft, the rebuild of the Senators will be front and centre. Seven picks in the first two rounds, including two of them in the top six. All this in what is widely believed to be one of the deepest drafts in the history of the sport.
The Ottawa Senators are a team on the rise. On the ice, there are better days ahead for this franchise. There are moments coming, like the 2017 playoff run, where you will completely forget who owns the hockey team. Where all the off-ice embarrassment will take a back seat to the product on the ice. Whether it’s a couple years from now or sooner, the best moments in the history of this relatively young franchise are still to come.
Yet for now, in this awkward hockey-free time between the start of the COVID Cup and the beginning of the 2020 regular season, it is once again our owner that has grabbed the attention of the hockey world and stirred up the frustration of a fan base well beyond its breaking point.
As annoying as it is to have these regular distractions from all that is good and promising with the hockey-side of the Senators, it’s important. It’s important that the large number of previously paying customers that have been alienated by this owner have an opportunity to point to another example of why they left in the first place. They get to remind us that they’re still out there, that they once cared and that they hate seeing what he’s doing to our team. Meanwhile for those of us that have stuck around, it’s a good reminder that even with all promise of better days, it all sits perilously in the shriveled, evil hands of our super-villain owner.
The last three years have torn this fan base apart.
Melnyk’s ownership has created these artificial divides that don’t exist in most fan bases. Rooting for the local sports team is supposed to be a unifying activity but in Ottawa, it’s anything but. The optimists clash with the pessimists. The still-paying customers go head to head with the “I’ll never give him another dime crowd” and the #MelnykOut crew are at odds with the “Have you considered the long-standing and fundamental issues with the Ottawa market?” type.
It shouldn’t be this way. He made it this way.
Even as I type this, I know half of you are thinking, “seriously, another one of these articles?” while the others are saying, “Finally, Chirp has come around to how terrible he is”. As though I haven’t been writing variations of this article for the last six years.
While the ever-growing list of embarrassments should not define this franchise and even though it would be nice if the narrative could stay locked in on the real potential that exists with this hockey team, that’s just not the way it is. And clearly, as long as he’s around, it will never be that way.
For many though, this most recent battle with the team’s own charitable foundation, represents a new low. We’ve heard the position of both sides over the last few days and there are clearly points to be made on both ends of the dispute. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is unfathomable that an owner would go to battle with his own charitable foundation in such a public way.
This just doesn’t happen.
This is not letting a high-priced player walk out the door and calling it a rebuild. This is not firing an executive because he hurt your feelings on Valentine’s Day or canning the team founder that led your life-saving organ donation campaign. This is not a questionable sit-down interview with one of your players or an incoherent meltdown on Toronto radio. It’s not a dispute with a Connecticut casino, a ruling by the Ontario Securities Commissions, an abusive behaviour lawsuit, an angry pilot or a bungled billion dollar land development deal.
This is the team’s own charitable foundation. An organization that is deeply embedded in the community and that has done so much good in our city. An organization that he has been charging rent for years.
It just seems like a step too far, even for him.
And that doesn’t even address the issues related to The Organ Project raised by Rick Gibbons earlier this week.
Maybe the Request for Proposals for the organization has planned will be open and transparent, maybe they find a more effective way to invest in the community and maybe the Sens Foundation is actually better off doing things their own way. We’ll have to wait and see. For now though, it’s just another reason for frustrated fans to voice their displeasure and for the rest of the hockey world to point and laugh.
Fact is, some of our frustration isn’t entirely logical. The tension between Melnyk and Sens fans became personal long ago and because of that, sometimes he gets blamed for things outside his control. Where we point the finger in his direction when really what we’re mad about are the harsh economic realities of small market franchise. Or in the case of some high-profile player departures takes a ton of heat for things that kind of work out in the end.
That’s likely not the case with this latest story but it’s worth acknowledging.
At the same time, there are also those instances where our collective anger towards ownership has given us a distraction from confronting some of the harsh realities facing hockey in this market. It’s not that the Senators are currently at risk of leaving but what was once a proud and thriving hockey market is now undoubtedly among the weakest in the NHL. Again, primarily his fault but it’s a fact we need to come to terms with. When you mix together a cratering season-ticket base, non-existent corporate sponsorship, an old rink, a complicated path to a new arena and a struggling Canadian dollar with the post-COVID economic reality facing all pro sports teams, you get a recipe for disaster.
There was a time not long ago, when you could make the argument that pushing him out would lead directly to better days. It would mean more deep-pocketed ownership, a new rink at LeBreton Flats and stability for hockey in Ottawa.
Now, Melnyk Out, feels like an uncertain path.
Right now, the NHL is committed to hockey in Ottawa but without paying customers, corporate support, an arena deal and local buyers lined up, it’s really not difficult to see how things could unravel here pretty quickly.
Under no circumstances would the league allow Eugene Melnyk to move the Ottawa Senators. That much is clear. But it is not impossible to imagine a scenario where he was looking to sell the team, and the best offers and maybe the only offers in the league’s acceptable range, come from outside the market.
And that’s the most infuriating part of all this.
A large portion of the fan base, including some of the loudest voices in the Melnyk Out movement, remain generally oblivious of, or at least willfully ignorant to, the real damage that’s happened here. When we raised money for those billboards and the hashtag took hold on twitter, our game plan wasn’t clear. Not everyone understood the demands and not everyone had a grasp on where this could all lead. Nor did many of the folks pushing that movement, myself included for a time, really get that some of the people involved would rather have no hockey team than one with Eugene Melnyk as an owner.
The last three years may have sunk his reputation and put a dent in his wallet but the real lasting damage is to the Ottawa market.
Maybe we can come back from this. Maybe a new owner will roll into town and save the day, much like the current owner did more than 17 years ago. Maybe we win the lottery and none of it matters for awhile. Or maybe someday, this market will get the chance to prove that Melnyk Out is all we really need to get back to where we once were. Any day now.
Or maybe, we never get that chance.
So like so many times before, I will again be diverting my attention from the tire fire that is Eugene Melnyk to the better days ahead for the on-ice product. I will once again be blocking out the uncertain future facing hockey in Ottawa and instead be thinking about how wonderful it would be to land the top two picks in the Draft just 16 days from now.
I will again go back to desperately trying to enjoy my hobby, at least until the next time some public embarrassment forces me to confront the reality of just how fucked we truly are with Eugene Melnyk as an owner.
Go Sens Go!
