Now there’s a headline that would have been pretty difficult to imagine writing a few years ago.
In a move that pretty clearly demonstrates a dramatic shift in how the team plans to interact with the fan base and with the media in this city, the Ottawa Senators are adding a couple familiar faces to the organization.
Yesterday, the Senators announced that they have hired Ian Mendes as their Vice President of Communications and Sylvain St-Laurent as the Director.
They’re both slated to settle into their new roles in early August.
Here’s Team President Cyril Leeder on the most recent additions to the team’s business side of the operation.
“We are excited about adding Ian and Sylvain to our team. The broadcasting and media landscape is experiencing a period of dramatic change and along with it too, the sports industry is evolving and growing. We are certain that Ian and Sylvain will be important contributors to our team as we navigate the sports and media landscapes going forward.”
Mendes, a one-time guest on The SensChirp Podcast, has gained a huge following over the years, including most recently at The Athletic. Meanwhile, St-Laurent is coming off a season as the manager of media relations for PWHL Ottawa and before that, spent a couple decades on the Sens beat.
It’s hard to imagine two more ideal candidates to build that bridge between the organization and the local media, both accredited and otherwise, and between the organization and the fan base.
What’s interesting about the move is it was met with what seemed like universal praise on Twitter, while here in the comment section, there has been some surprising apprehension about the additions.
Which in some ways, speaks to the important work that Mendes and St-Laurent will have to do as they settle into these new roles.
Yes, there is a portion of the fan base that is more active on Twitter that often seem generally aligned in their viewpoints but there are also pockets of fans congregating in all different corners of the internet. They’re in comment sections, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram and on whatever the hell TikTok is, I think.
And then there is a huge chunk of the fan base that isn’t online at all. They’re in rinks, in schools, in bars and in communities across the city. The way you engage those people isn’t going to be the same as the way you reach out to your audience on Twitter. And then there are a bunch of people that just sort of lost touch with the team entirely during the depths of a lengthy rebuild.
They’re all talking about the Sens but not always in the same way.
Those divisions that exist in the fan base are a natural progression in the evolving media landscape but also sort of a hold-over from some of the dark points in the last decade of Sens hockey. While it has improved in the last couple years, there is still work to do.
The Communications Department will ultimately play a critical role in uniting the fan base and bringing back some of those people that have fallen off and disengaged in recent years. A big part of that is going to be connecting with fans in new ways and in different venues. Both in Ottawa and in the Gatineau region.
At the same time, as the Senators go in a new direction on communications, it’s important not to lose sight of the two good people that are apparently losing their jobs as part of the shuffle.
Both Brian and Chris have been with the organization forever and did amazing things with the team through some really challenging stretches. And on a personal note, both Brian and Chris have been big supporters of this site over the years and at moments when it was less than conventional to team up with the blogging world.
