Crappy attendance isn't a problem when the team does well. The on ice PRODUCT is something that we have to be convinced to pay for. The team isn't ENTITLED to our money. They have to inspire us to pay. Threatening to move the team doesn't inspire us, it just creates animosity. How about you open your eyes and recognize that the Sens fans are SENS fans, not Melnyk fans. Many of us don't want a single solitary cent going to that squalid ****.
We heard a lot of big talk about how the team would "Spend when the time is right." How about after we went to the conference finals against the eventual cup winners and did better than anyone else against them, going to game 7 double-OT and more than once leading the series? That off season was the time to spend.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're playing devil's advocate, trying to see things from the other side. The problem is that the Senators ORGANISATION offers a service. That service is seeing the team play. When the service isn't good enough to draw customers, you don't blame the customers. "Oh, ****, my spaghetti tastes like an elephant's ass, and thus my Italian restaurant is failing! I better BLAME THE TOWN I LIVE IN for not spending more money in my restaurant to let me afford a better chef!" How do you not see how faulty that 'logic' is? Are you just trolling, or do you actually think that **** smearing **** Melnyk is right in this?
That's NOT how it works. FIRST you spend money, THEN you make money. If Melnyk wanted our money, first he had to invest in the team. Instead, he's LESSENED the amount of money he's putting into the team, not growing it.
You want more people going to your business? Offer more/better service. You don't ***** and ****ing moan when you cut the funding and then as a consequence people stop showing up. What a ****ing victim complex all the Melnyk supporters have for him. "WAH, WAH! Daddy Eugene isn't a billionaire anymore, and the fans wont give him money in the HOPES of seeing the team improve! WAH!"
So yeah, I agree that you need paying fans AND deep pockets from the owners. The problem is that you seem to think they come at the same time. THEY DON'T. FIRST the owner(s) have to invest in their business, THEN the customers buy the service. You don't pay for dinner BEFORE you read the menu. If Melnyk isn't going to pay the best defenseman in the world, why should any of us pay him a god damn ****ing penny? Answer: we shouldn't. He can go **** himself straight back to Barbados, and do us all the favour of losing his way to the airport once he arrives. He failed in pharmaceuticals and passed that failure onto the Senators, which is burying this team.
Ottawa is a perfectly viable market, but because so much of the city is Leafs fans and Habs fans, you have to get results to sell out games that aren't against those teams. If you sustain a winning culture long enough, you will grow the fan base naturally, and then you wont have enough tickets to go around. But blaming the current state of the team on the fans is asinine, and I'm being generous. Its not OUR responsibility to ice a competitive team, its Melnyk's and Dorion's. Its not OUR responsibility to sign the players who are the driving forces on the team, its Melnyk's and Dorion's. Its not OUR responsibility to motivate people to buy tickets. Its Melnyk's and Dorion's. They failed, and failed, and failed. Failure doesn't pay the bills.