Has the boycott been effective so far?

[GCK]

Some good points made, but now the question is; where do we go from here?

EM has committed over and over again to not selling the team, and if he were to sell the team it would make zero sense to do it before the arena and Lebreton development goes down, which is at least several years away.
As long as the league keeps growing revenues and therefore franchise values he can lose money today and still come out ahead. With Seattle and gambling, the league could continue to grow.

So how does the city and the team move forward from what in general was an awkward year. The cap has risen too much for this market to be a cap team anymore, save for a potential contending build up, I think most can see that, so an exciting budget team seems reasonable. I think most fans can get behind watching enjoyable and competitive hockey, especially since spending has traditionally not been the be all end all to winning championships.
There needs to be an olive branch from ownership, meaning signing Duchene and/or Stone. Ownership needs to invest but it can't make the big mistakes like they have in the past. Don't make hockey decisions based on optics. Alfie leaves and we trade for BR and then overpay. Stay away from too may long term contracts, trading EK was the best move for the organization but the crap around it made the optics worse.

So then we're left with the relationship between the owner and the fanbase. It's not as bad as some would make it out to be simply because most fans don't really care about the off ice issues, but many do, enough to raise a ruckus and keep at least some continued focus on the negative relationship. In the end, if the owner is not open to selling the team there has to be a way for the fences to be mended.
Out of sight / out of mind. The longer he stays quiet the better. If we didn't hear from him until July 15th, 2019, that might be a start (unless there is Lebreton news).

There can, and should, be an expectation that the organization will work hard to build back fan loyalty, ultimately by icing an exciting product that can be trusted to grow and compete, and fans need to be willing to be wooed back at the right price.
It will take time and a silent owner but it can be done IMO. Let the PR and Hockey people do the talking.

If your partner cheats on you, and you're not going to leave them, you have to give them the opportunity to make things right eventually, or all you're doing is perpetually punishing them, all the while preventing yourself from moving on and finding your own happiness.
That's just gross, Melnyk looks like a dehydrated troll doll.

Hopefully we'll see this season as punishment attendance-wise, and the team will continue to get better, give incentives, work hard to make a better in-game environment, while committing to growing on-ice success. If they commit to working hard to rebuild fences, hopefully those fans who are especially angry will eventually find their way back to being supportive fans of their team.

I understand that this will be a process for some, I just hope it's a possibility, as this fanbase and this board deserves to find a way out of this funk and get back to getting heated over players, games, trades and rivals.

 

[Take a Bath Son]

"Losers blame others. Winners plan for success"-Eugene Melnyk April 2018

The thrust of Mlakar's discussion yesterday was you have to have a plan-on the ice and off.

What I see on the ice is actually encouraging. I have seen nothing off ice to really wet my lips.

I've always thought gamification through an app whereby showing up to the rink yielded major incentives. Not a points card, a Sens game app that pulls in statistical hockey data, has people playing at their seat, stat quizes, rewards being at the rink, has a leaderboard and has major incentives to play-by game and by season. Something very very addictive that incentivizes showing up.

That is one idea. There are hundreds. Last time I checked, I don't work for them so its up to them to figure it out. But there are many ways to get bums in the seats that does not involve a toque and a hot dog. They need to think smart and not sell like other NHL teams are selling, sell the market they have not whine about the market they aren't.

The biggest problems with the team are the location and the owner. After that, they need to think a bit, understand their buyers and be proactive about opportunities. No whining on bulletin boards about lame fans.

 

[swiftwin]

The big issue though is we need to be an exciting product, and we can't be alienating fans. Boucher's system initially got decent results, but frankly MacLean's system got similar results in the reg season with a far more interesting product, as an example. Murray (RIP) had the theory that hockey should be fun, and playing an offense first system was typically how he wanted things run. Obviously you have to have some focus on D, but when the narrative is you're the most boring team in the league, that's not a great thing for a team that needs to scrape and claw for it's ticket sales. As for the alienating fans bit, there are some pretty obvious area's the team dropped the ball, be it Melnyk opening his mouth, the way Dorion handled various trades, or some things that may or may not have been controllable like the Randy Lee fiasco.

Small sidebar:

The crazy thing is that I believe this affects the players too. Boucher's old system system was fine and dandy for a short period of time, especially when the team had multiple stories to rally around like we did in 2017.

Boucher used to always say "never too high, never too low", and basically asked the players to stick to the system like emotionless robots. I forget which presser, but earlier this season, Boucher admitted that this was a wrong way to approach things last season. He keeps repearting that we should celebrate our victories (until midnight). I truly believe Boucher is embracing trying to make the game fun for the players. Mendez had a good piece on some on the drill they're running this year. Sounds like they have one there one team has to try to score a touchdown on another team, etc. Not to mention the fact that our system is way more aggressive and allows for everyone to partake in offensive rushes. I really believe Boucher has changed this season. I hope we re-sign him this off season.

 

[Ice-Tray]

Not sure I really agree. There's a lot of risk involved in the Lebreton development, selling before means he exchanges potential of greater profits in the future for a sure thing now. Obviously it all depends on the offer being made, but there is certainly potential for a big pay day selling prior to Lebreton, and there's potential for failure to complete Lebreton, so there absolutely is some sense in selling now, it's all just a risk benefit analysis. How much risk is Melnyk willing to take, and how close is the perspective buyer(s) willing to bring their offer to the potential benefit Melnyk could gain by holding out till after Lebreton is complete.

As to committing not to sell, I take that with a grain of salt as he could be being truthful, or he could be trying to increase his leverage in negotiations. Only he knows.

Eh, if this were some other business deal sure, but this is one of 31 NHL hockey franchises, it’s an exclusive club, it’s a vanity purchase, and he’s always been what I would describe as an avid fan of his team.

That’s not to say that he couldn’t change his mind, or potentially be forced financially to sell it, but I put more weight on him wanting to keep the team at all costs and pass it on to his daughter as a legacy.

In the end my post was more a discussion on hopefully the angriest group of fans eventually settling on a ‘plan B’ because ‘plan A’ may not be possible.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Eh, if this were some other business deal sure, but this is one of 31 NHL hockey franchises, it’s an exclusive club, it’s a vanity purchase, and he’s always been what I would describe as an avid fan of his team.

That’s not to say that he couldn’t change his mind, or potentially be forced financially to sell it, but I put more weight on him wanting to keep the team at all costs and pass it on to his daughter as a legacy.

An NHL team is exactly that, a vanity purchase. Billionaires own pro sports teams because it gets them into that exclusive club, and they get to hobnob with athletes, who they wish they were.

The problem is, Melnyk no longer has the wealth to justify owning a team for vanity purposes. He needs cash flow, and the Senators will never be a lucrative source of cash flow. They will continue to post an operational loss, even if they move to Lebreton, just like almost every other small market sports team.

If Melnyk can't stomach the year-to-year operational loss (and he has said that he can't) and isn't willing to subsidize operations with income from other ventures (and he has said that he won't) to continue watching the overall value of the franchise go up, then he won't be able to hold onto the team. Eventually he will be forced to sell. Not by Gary Bettman or the league, but by financial circumstance.

The threat of moving the franchise is baseless, because Melnyk doesn't have the money to move the team. It's an impossibility.

He has two options:
• Continue "losing" money from year to year
• Put the team up for sale and watch the league prioritize local buyers

This myth of "leaving the team to his daughters" is also just that, a myth. His daughters are college students, one in L.A and the other in Toronto. They do not live in Ottawa, they do not come to games in Ottawa, and are in no way involved in this franchise. What do you think they'd rather? A small market NHL team that loses money or a couple hundred million dollars each?

 

[Ice-Tray]

An NHL team is exactly that, a vanity purchase. Billionaires own pro sports teams because it gets them into that exclusive club, and they get to hobnob with athletes.

The problem is, Melnyk no longer has the wealth to justify owning a team for vanity purposes. He needs cash flow, and the Senators will never be a lucrative source of cash flow. They will continue to post an operational loss, even if they move to Lebreton, just like almost every other small market sports team.

If Melnyk can't stomach the year-to-year operational loss (and he has said that he can't) and isn't willing to subsidize operations with income from other ventures (and he has said that he won't) to continue watching the overall value of the franchise go up, then he won't be able to hold onto the team. Eventually he will be forced to sell. Not by Gary Bettman or the league, but by financial circumstance.

The threat of moving the franchise is baseless, because Melnyk doesn't have the money to move the team. It's an impossibility.

He has two options:
• Continue losing money from year to year
• Put the team up for sale and watch the league prioritize local buyers

This myth of "leaving the team to his daughters" is also just that, a myth. His daughters are college students, one in L.A and the other in Toronto. They do not live in Ottawa, they do not come to games in Ottawa, and are in no way involved in this franchise. What do you think they'd rather? A small market NHL team that loses money or a couple hundred million dollars each?

I'm not sure owning an NHL team has as much caché as you think, this isn't the NFL or even the NBA. I meant more than people tend to have passion reasons for owning a hockey team, reasons that don't always follow the traditional business lines of thinking.

Team's don't come up for sale often, and even when they do there is a heavy vetting process of which having the money is only one aspect. Expecting an owner to give up ownership 'easily' or just for money, I think is unlikely in most cases.

This team has never really been a money maker outside of playoff revenues, this has been common knowledge since the team arrived. I doubt EM expects to be tuning a profit year after year, and there is no way that new owners would come in thinking that this would be the case either. I suspect that they only reason there would be local buyers is because they see the value in the massive land and arena deal on the horizon and are looking for ways to be the ones to profit from it. No one is looking at the fanbase and seeing dollar signs, there are only a handful of those in the entire league, and we're sandwiched right between two of them. The value is in the new arena and land deal, EM is not going to sell that to someone else easily.

Looking at the attendance this year it is certainly troubling, but it's doesn't look like a disaster, and it doesn't look to be getting worse. A perfect storm of an unexpectedly terrible year, some ownership blunders, and trading a superstar, have culminated to what we see now. Barring more dramatic collapses this is the worst culmination of events and the poor attendance reflect it. But is it likely to get worse? I'm not so sure.

The team playing as well as it has, dealing with our pending UFA's, and a continued push to give incentives and such will likely see attendance stabilize and perhaps even rise a little. I mean most people just want to watch entertaining hockey and if what we're seeing continues I doubt we'll see an increase in people deliberately staying away.

I understand that you're banking on EM being forced to sell as justification for boycotting the team, but what will you do if he isn't forced to sell, what then?

 

[DaveMatthew]

I understand that you're banking on EM being forced to sell as justification for boycotting the team, but what will you do if he isn't forced to sell, what then?

For myself, as a hardcore fan, I don't need Melnyk to sell. What I would like to see, though, is:

• A major investment in the on-ice future of this team by re-signing Stone and Duchene to long-term contracts. So far, all we've heard are empty platitudes from both the players and management. "I want to stay, we want them here... blah blah blah." That's the same thing we heard from Karlsson and Dorion in September 2017. There's been nothing concrete, and until I see a press release with signed contract terms, I'm not going to buy-in to this "rebuild". I agree that we've seen promise this year with Tkachuk, Chabot, Lajoie, Batherson, etc. They all look great. If we lose Stone and Duchene though, it all goes back to 0.

• An investment into upper-level management. Filling the COO, CMO and Assistant GM roles are not investments, they're back-fills for people who left. Unlike some, I don't think Dorion is a complete idiot. I think he's actually a really good evaluator of talent. But, he's a terrible communicator and he's very junior in his role. He needs help, and Melnyk, Ruszkowski and a contract lawyer shouldn't be his sounding board for hockey decisions. This team needs a President of Hockey Operations to give Dorion guidance. Think of someone like John Davidson in Columbus or Brendan Shanahan in Toronto. Someone established and respected. One of the biggest assets of having Bryan Murray around was that he held a lot of weight around the hockey world and was a great buffer between Melnyk and the hockey side of the franchise. Look what's happened since he's left.

• Eugene Melnyk to stay away from hockey ops. Be an owner. Come to games as a fan. Talk about the business-side of the team. Provide updates on Lebreton. But stop talking about hockey decisions. Stop commenting on player salaries, how much coaches should be paid, or hosting video fire-side chats with Mark Borowiecki. Act like a normal owner.

For most casual fans though, it goes beyond just hockey ops. For this team to successful in the long-term, Lebreton needs to happen.

Personally, I don't think Melnyk is the guy who can pull it off, which is why he won't be here in 5 years. Pulling off Lebreton is going to be one hell of a project. The amount of coordination and patience to navigate through the immense amount of red tape is incredible, and those are not skills that Melnyk possesses. He's a grifter and wants things to go his way, and only his way. The guy who was instrumental in winning him the bid, Cyril Leeder, is gone. The guy he brought in the see the project through, Tom Anselmi, is gone. Who's left, Melnyk and Ruszkowski, a former political PR guy? Not the most confidence-inspiring group.

Winning the bid was just the start of a very long journey. It doesn't, at all, mean that the NCC can't move forward with a different group for the development, and that's what I think will happen.

Saying that most people only want to watch entertaining hockey is just not true. The industry has changed since the 90's and early 00's. When people are shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a night, they want an experience, not just a hockey game. They can watch an entertaining hockey game in 4k at home. People need more.

The experience of going out to Kanata sucks, and that won't change. There's nowhere to eat, nowhere to have a drink, nothing. Pro sports is not just about the sport. That's why in every league, you see teams move back in downtown areas. That's why watching a game in Montreal or Toronto is so different. That's why the Redblacks have succeeded.

 

[Take a Bath Son]

For myself, as a hardcore fan, I don't need Melnyk to sell. What I would like to see, though, is:

• A major investment in the on-ice future of this team by re-signing Stone and Duchene to long-term contracts. So far, all we've heard are empty platitudes from both the players and management. "I want to stay, we want them here... blah blah blah." That's the same thing we heard from Karlsson and Dorion in September 2017. There's been nothing concrete, and until I see a press release with signed contract terms, I'm not going to buy-in to this "rebuild". I agree that we've seen promise this year with Tkachuk, Chabot, Lajoie, Batherson, etc. They all look great. If we lose Stone and Duchene though, it all goes back to 0.

• An investment into upper-level management. Filling the COO, CMO and Assistant GM roles are not investments, they're back-fills for people who left. Unlike some, I don't think Dorion is a complete idiot. I think he's actually a really good evaluator of talent. But, he's a terrible communicator and he's very junior in his role. He needs help, and Melnyk, Ruszkowski and a contract lawyer shouldn't be his sounding board for hockey decisions. This team needs a President of Hockey Operations to give Dorion guidance. Think of someone like John Davidson in Columbus or Brendan Shanahan in Toronto. Someone established and respected. One of the biggest assets of having Bryan Murray around was that he held a lot of weight around the hockey world and was a great buffer between Melnyk and the hockey side of the franchise. Look what's happened since he's left.

• Eugene Melnyk to stay away from hockey ops. Be an owner. Come to games as a fan. Talk about the business-side of the team. Provide updates on Lebreton. But stop talking about hockey decisions. Stop commenting on player salaries, how much coaches should be paid, or hosting video fire-side chats with Mark Borowiecki. Act like a normal owner.

For most casual fans though, it goes beyond just hockey ops. For this team to successful in the long-term, Lebreton needs to happen.

Personally, I don't think Melnyk is the guy who can pull it off, which is why he won't be here in 5 years. Pulling off Lebreton is going to be one hell of a project. The amount of coordination and patience to navigate through the immense amount of red tape is incredible, and those are not skills that Melnyk possesses. He's a grifter and wants things to go his way, and only his way. The guy who was instrumental in winning him the bid, Cyril Leeder, is gone. The guy he brought in the see the project through, Tom Anselmi, is gone. Who's left, Melnyk and Ruszkowski, a former political PR guy? Not the most confidence-inspiring group.

Winning the bid was just the start of a very long journey. It doesn't, at all, mean that the NCC can't move forward with a different group for the development, and that's what I think will happen.

Saying that most people only want to watch entertaining hockey is just not true. The industry has changed since the 90's and early 00's. When people are shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a night, they want an experience, not just a hockey game. They can watch an entertaining hockey game in 4k at home. People need more.

The experience of going out to Kanata sucks, and that won't change. There's nowhere to eat, nowhere to have a drink, nothing. Pro sports is not just about the sport. That's why in every league, you see teams move back in downtown areas. That's why watching a game in Montreal or Toronto is so different. That's why the Redblacks have succeeded.

Nailed it.

 

[Micklebot]

Thread is over 1000 posts, and while the conversation has been fun, I think this bad boy has run it's course. When something new happens, maybe we can start a new thread to discuss it's impact.