Confirmed with Link: #MelnykOut Campaign - successfully raised 8K over this past weekend.

[Deku]

Last time I will post in this thread because folks are just too polarized and unwilling to look at the situation objectively.

'my opinion is fact"

 

[The Lewler]

Last time I will post in this thread because folks are just too polarized and unwilling to look at the situation objectively.

I believe in any situation that it’s better to seek a positive approach than a negative one. Spending money to vilify Melnyk is just an angry and churlish response. I understand the anger but acting on anger never solves a problem. Ever.

I think a #resignEk65 would have done more good and would have represented what most fans are actually worried about at present.

Also, I personally cannot summon the depths of feeling that some folks on here are experiencing.

For me, the Sens are just a hockey team owned by a stranger and composed entirely of strangers. I will never know any of them personally. I save real emotions for those close to me. NHL hockey is just another form of entertainment. It’s simply a business that wants my money.

That seems like an ill advised rigid maxim by which to live your life.

Yes yes, I'm being pedantic , but taken to the extreme it's pretty funny.

 

[slamigo]

'my opinion is fact"

Uh, no. I stated that folks are becoming polarized. Rather than looking at this objectively, they are entrenching their viewpoints with a bunker mentality. The truth is nearly always ‘a little from column A, a little from column B’.

That seems like an ill advised rigid maxim by which to live your life.

Yes yes, I'm being pedantic , but taken to the extreme it's pretty funny.

Not at all. Just a lifetime of learning things the hard way. Negativity has never been a successful path for me. Perhaps your experience differs.

Anyway, I’m starting to sound preachy and judgmental. Not my desired outcome. I’d just urge folks to focus on the things they want and try not to let negativity bring you too far down. Cheers.

 

[The Lewler]

Uh, no. I stated that folks are becoming polarized. Rather than looking at this objectively, they are entrenching their viewpoints with a bunker mentality. The truth is nearly always ‘a little from column A, a little from column B’.

Not at all. Just a lifetime of learning things the hard way. Negativity has never been a successful path for me. Perhaps your experience differs.

Anyway, I’m starting to sound preachy and judgmental. Not my desired outcome. I’d just urge folks to focus on the things they want and try not to let negativity bring you too far down. Cheers.

lol no.

I meant a silly example like:

"This situation seems dangerous for observed reason X,Y,Z . Someone may get hurt pretty bad"

"That's pretty negative way of viewing the situation, everyone is having fun and we've never had any problems to date, just be positive and it will likely work out for the best".

 

[Countdown0]

So, its pretty simple, really. Over the past few years, everyone has, at some point, been blamed for things not going the right way, and have been sent packing.

Coaches were blamed: Hartsburg, Clouston, MacLean... but new coaches didn't provide fixes that lasted.

Players were blamed: Spezza was basically booed out of town, for example. Ceci seems to have become the new popular punching bag for the fans who blame players over the past couple of season.

Management was blamed: First it was Murray being blamed, for things like bad contracts and bad trades, overly safe draft picks. Now people are blaming Dorion for SOME similar things, and also some different things.

But you know who has been a constant this entire time? Eugene Melnyk, with his budget, his CSI investigations, his complaining over attendance and even threats to move the team. He's been a constant, and he's been getting worse.

Let's make this clear, Melnyk isn't JUST the owner. he's also the CEO AND the President of the team now. If a business fails to perform over and over and over again, you can only layoff the people at the bottom and in the middle so many times before, eventually, you've gotta look at the top. Changes in players, coaches, and management haven't even turned this team back into an annual playoff team, to say nothing of an annual championship contender.

Melnyk is the only person left who has been around for all of the failure, had a hand in all of the bullshit. That's why the #MelnykOut sign has come about. Some people are finally starting to realise that the only thing that hasn't been done in an attempt to change this team's fortunes is a change at the very top. If it wasn't a billboard, it would have been a fan rally, or a newspaper add, or something.

And people can makes excuses for Melnyk and his budget if they want, but there's an old saying that you may have heard: "you have to spend money to make money". Anyone?

Eugene, for whatever reason that is kept behind closed doors, just isn't fit to own a contending NHL team anymore. So if you're content to wallow in mediocrity, at best, while praying for the stars to align, hell to freeze over, Cthulhu to awaken from his sleep and every single coin flip to come up heads for the Sens to finally win it all, good for you. But we will not win a Cup with a budget kneecapping us. So unless Melnyk inherits some massive oil fields in the middle east, we're not winning a cup while he dictates the Sens' direction.

 

[mysens]

Ottawa has cheap fans, all the complainers here starting a movement to oust the owner are the problem, looking for any excuse not to put their Alligator arms in their pockets and support their team. Not selling out in the first and second round is pathetic, and then blame the owner because of his personality is why you are not going, yeah right cheap fans. All you bashers, this owner saved your team from folding and moving. That clown who started the movement in placing billboards to oust the owner should use that money he collected and finally actually put his but in a seat in the arena and support his team, or if he had any class is take that money he collected and purchase seats in the 300 sections for charity's like boys and girls club, minor hockey associations and all so that the kids and the next generation of fans get to see what this beautiful game is all about.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Ottawa has cheap fans, all the complainers here starting a movement to oust the owner are the problem, looking for any excuse not to put their Alligator arms in their pockets and support their team. Not selling out in the first and second round is pathetic, and then blame the owner because of his personality is why you are not going, yeah right cheap fans. All you bashers, this owner saved your team from folding and moving. That clown who started the movement in placing billboards to oust the owner should use that money he collected and finally actually put his but in a seat in the arena and support his team, or if he had any class is take that money he collected and purchase seats in the 300 sections for charity's like boys and girls club, minor hockey associations and all so that the kids and the next generation of fans get to see what this beautiful game is all about.

Ottawa fans purchase more individual+season tickets in relation to their population size than any other fan base in the entire NHL. This is because the Senators have the lowest potential corporate ticket base (when measured in the metric supposedly used by the NHL to measure max possible season ticket holders) out of the entire league.

The problem when it comes to attendance is not fan support or fans being cheap. This is a meme spouted by people who are either ignorant to the business climate the Senators operator under when compared to other NHL teams, or people who don't understand extremely basic supply and demand.

 

[DrEasy]

Ottawa fans purchase more individual+season tickets in relation to their population size than any other fan base in the entire NHL. This is because the Senators have the lowest potential corporate ticket base (when measured in the metric supposedly used by the NHL to measure max possible season ticket holders) out of the entire league.

The problem when it comes to attendance is not fan support or fans being cheap. This is a meme spouted by people who are either ignorant to the business climate the Senators operator under when compared to other NHL teams, or people who don't understand extremely basic supply and demand.

Well then why is Melnyk blaming the fans? Of all people he should be the most knowledgeable one regarding these numbers and the role the corporate ticket base plays into all this.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Ottawa has cheap fans, all the complainers here starting a movement to oust the owner are the problem, looking for any excuse not to put their Alligator arms in their pockets and support their team. Not selling out in the first and second round is pathetic, and then blame the owner because of his personality is why you are not going, yeah right cheap fans. All you bashers, this owner saved your team from folding and moving. That clown who started the movement in placing billboards to oust the owner should use that money he collected and finally actually put his but in a seat in the arena and support his team, or if he had any class is take that money he collected and purchase seats in the 300 sections for charity's like boys and girls club, minor hockey associations and all so that the kids and the next generation of fans get to see what this beautiful game is all about.

Is it just me, or does that post sound exactly like a Melynk twitter/Toronto radio interview rant?

 

[Hutz]

Last time I will post in this thread because folks are just too polarized and unwilling to look at the situation objectively.

I believe in any situation that it’s better to seek a positive approach than a negative one. Spending money to vilify Melnyk is just an angry and churlish response. I understand the anger but acting on anger never solves a problem. Ever.

I think a #resignEk65 would have done more good and would have represented what most fans are actually worried about at present.

Also, I personally cannot summon the depths of feeling that some folks on here are experiencing.

For me, the Sens are just a hockey team owned by a stranger and composed entirely of strangers. I will never know any of them personally. I save real emotions for those close to me. NHL hockey is just another form of entertainment. It’s simply a business that wants my money.

I do have real emotions invested in this team, but that aside, very much agree. I first heard of this campaign from the thread title and my first thought was to what end? Like what exactly was 8K raised for? What happens to that money? Billboards? For whom? I really want Melnyk gone, not so much for the finances, but he lost me with his idiotic comments at the outdoor game. How do you turn a celebration of your franchise into a negative thing? But yeah, tweet the hashtag... I do. But what does this money do? Seems silly to me. I also haven't bothered reading the article, though.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Those prices, in the article you linked, are re-sale prices, so hardly relevant.

Where did you find the "top half of the league in profits" numbers ??

13-14: 8th highest operating income and 13th highest revenue

Forbes: Three NHL teams now worth $1 billion - Sportsnet.ca

16-17: 20th highest operating income and the franchises below seem to be in much better shape than this one. (Click on the teams to see income and revenue.)

The Business Of Hockey

Things sure look different than Televangelist Eugene would have you believe. Sorry if I don’t believe that returning to the attendance numbers of a few years ago is going to somehow make him spend to the cap and turn us into a perennial contender this time around.

But hey, once Karlsson is gone his words might reflect reality. What a great business man!

 

[Tuna99]

Ottawa has cheap fans, all the complainers here starting a movement to oust the owner are the problem, looking for any excuse not to put their Alligator arms in their pockets and support their team. Not selling out in the first and second round is pathetic, and then blame the owner because of his personality is why you are not going, yeah right cheap fans. All you bashers, this owner saved your team from folding and moving. That clown who started the movement in placing billboards to oust the owner should use that money he collected and finally actually put his but in a seat in the arena and support his team, or if he had any class is take that money he collected and purchase seats in the 300 sections for charity's like boys and girls club, minor hockey associations and all so that the kids and the next generation of fans get to see what this beautiful game is all about.

It’s Melncyks product, if he ‘saved’ it once, he also ruined it once.

 

[mysens]

Is it just me, or does that post sound exactly like a Melynk twitter/Toronto radio interview rant?

Rant? All these boycots for a team owner? You people really think the man with the money is going to sell his team for you and make sure the team stays in ottawa with a new owner?! That's just ludicrous and small mind mentality. We will lose this team for ever, and the owner will not be to blame.....it will be the fans and fans only.....you think ottawa will get another owner and franchise after this pathetic show of go fund me pages and silly bill boards? Be careful everyone, put your pride aside and support your team and players, you are all setting a very bad and ugly impression if there was any other interest for a possible investors.

 

[Take a Bath Son]

its on the sens to sell the tickets, not the fans. period. Guilting people into purchasing behaviour is a losing approach and will likely result in a worse situation which is exactly what has happened.

The very idea that you can "blame" fans for your company's financial position is ludicrous. It happens in sport, this is not the first time its been seen but at the end of the day, if the financial situation is so dire, Melnyk can sell.

So to me something doesn't add up. If the financial position is so dire, why is he hanging on so stubbornly? I think the fans called his bluff and now he's forced to backtrack.

I do agree with some posters about the Melnykout thing getting a bit out of hand, but you know, Melnyk decided he would tap into the emotion and guilt people into buying tickets and that same emotion came back and bit him hard.

I also remain very angry with him for one reason. the melnykout guy said it quite well in the newspaper "He threw us under the bus on national TV, on the biggest platform he possibly could" When he did this, the floodgates of "Ottawa sucks" were opened everywhere. It was a very ill advised statement he made about moving on that day when the whole country was watching. He seems to do that a lot.

He's a narcissist and an egomaniac but we don't pick our parents and we don't pick our sports team owners as much as we'd like to.

You reap what you sow-fans and owner and there is no quick fix for either right now. (unless he sold )

 

[Tuna99]

Rant? All these boycots for a team owner? You people really think the man with the money is going to sell his team for you and make sure the team stays in ottawa with a new owner?! That's just ludicrous and small mind mentality. We will lose this team for ever, and the owner will not be to blame.....it will be the fans and fans only.....you think ottawa will get another owner and franchise after this pathetic show of go fund me pages and silly bill boards? Be careful everyone, put your pride aside and support your team and players, you are all setting a very bad and ugly impression if there was any other interest for a possible investors.

No, the owner put on a pathetic show and that’s why Ottawa will be getting a new owner because Melnycks brand is pathetic. It’s Melncyks product, Melnyck ruined it as he’s ruined other products, Biovail took off magnificently after you were forced out, same things will happen here in Ottawa.

We aren’t leaving, ownership is. Ownership is just angry he’ll be remembered as a bum, and that stings his fragile ego.

 

[Sensung]

Rant? All these boycots for a team owner? You people really think the man with the money is going to sell his team for you and make sure the team stays in ottawa with a new owner?! That's just ludicrous and small mind mentality. We will lose this team for ever, and the owner will not be to blame.....it will be the fans and fans only.....you think ottawa will get another owner and franchise after this pathetic show of go fund me pages and silly bill boards? Be careful everyone, put your pride aside and support your team and players, you are all setting a very bad and ugly impression if there was any other interest for a possible investors.

Lebreton will happen with or without Melnyk.

Lebreton will have an NHL franchise with or without Melnyk.

The time to force Eugene out is now.

 

[Tnuoc Alucard]

13-14: 8th highest operating income and 13th highest revenue

Forbes: Three NHL teams now worth $1 billion - Sportsnet.ca

16-17: 20th highest operating income and the franchises below seem to be in much better shape than this one. (Click on the teams to see income and revenue.)

The Business Of Hockey

Things sure look different than Televangelist Eugene would have you believe. Sorry if I don’t believe that returning to the attendance numbers of a few years ago is going to somehow make him spend to the cap and turn us into a perennial contender this time around.

But hey, once Karlsson is gone his words might reflect reality. What a great business man!

So I read an Operating Income for 2013-2014 of $22.5 million

And and Operating Income (calculated in November 2017 ) of $10 million.

 

[Tnuoc Alucard]

No, the owner put on a pathetic show and that’s why Ottawa will be getting a new owner because Melnycks brand is pathetic

When is this going to happen, and who is it?

Lebreton will happen with or without Melnyk.

Lebreton will have an NHL franchise with or without Melnyk.

The time to force Eugene out is now.

As of today, Lebreton is happening with Melnyk, and the Senators will move there with him.


Please explain how you think a few billboards, and a full page ad in the newspaper is going to "force him out".

 

[The Lewler]

All this wailing and gnashing of teeth over 10k raised.

Fans are sending a message, it going to be a one shot burst, I'm fine with it.

These lectures about it's setting a bad precedent and poisoning the well are tiresome. The well is already poisoned here, a billboard campaign is nothing more than a demonstration of displeasure from a good number of fans who care and are angry.

It's not going to make Melnyk sell, and I think his plan is not to acknowledge it at all.

But if he doesn't acknowledge it , AND he doesn't actually take any steps to change the ownership/mgmt approach to running the Sens (like in his letter) well now you are building more evidence of the disconnect.

 

[Flip_4]

Free tickets to a full season ticket holder doesn't make much sense imo. What are you going to do with a ticket to a game you already have tickets for? I guess bring a friend, or sell it off. Better idea would be to give some other equivalent perk, but that's just my opinion.

This X 1000. I've had so many arguments with my season ticket manager about just this. Add to it that I had only one seat because my friend and I split the account into two...and the extra ticket was always in an entirely different section even if the seats next to me were free. Just give me the money back on my season account card. That way I can use it for food or souvenirs.

Since I'm only renewing for 10 games next season (2 seats), I would think that there will be no extra perks. Not spending enough money.

 

[Flip_4]

Where are your seats?

My seats were in the 300s...centre ice for 18 of my 19 years.

 

[Bileur]

What a time it would be for a new ownership group to swoop in like the eagles at the end of Lord of the Rings and save the day.

Buy the team, resign EK, draft a top prospect this season and bring in a couple key UFA’s to position us to be contenders in the new rink.

 

[Sensung]

As of today, Lebreton is happening with Melnyk, and the Senators will move there with him.

Congrats on your grasp of the obvious.

Lebreton will happen with or without Melnyk.

There will be an NHL franchise at Lebreton with or without Melnyk.

People trying scare tactics by suggesting Ottawa won't have an NHL franchise if Melnyk is forced out are wrong.

Please explain how you think a few billboards, and a full page ad in the newspaper is going to "force him out".

Please point to any post I've made suggesting those actions would force him out.

The only way to TRY to force him out is to empty the arena and make sure Melnyk and the NHL know the boycott is directed towards Melnyk not the team.

The #Melnykout movement helps with the PR campaign showing Melnyk is the problem.

 

[LuckyPierre]

What a time it would be for a new ownership group to swoop in like the eagles at the end of Lord of the Rings and save the day.

Buy the team, resign EK, draft a top prospect this season and bring in a couple key UFA’s to position us to be contenders in the new rink.

Eugene Melnyk knows how convenient the timing is for a prospective buyer should they choose to swoop in.

That's why he threatened to sell off Karlsson to the highest bidder at the deadline (and why he wasn't traded, too). That's why he's making it all but a foregone conclusion that Karlsson will be sold to the highest bidder at the draft.

Eugene has a price tag in mind for the franchise which has been balked at (Desmarais). The Karlsson saga is a pressure point he's using to force the hand of the prospective buyer. Eugene will sell if his price is met, or he'll hang on for dear life and follow through on his threat to cut costs down to the bone if it isn't.

Keep in mind, Eugene is not interested in investing at the level that would put the Senators in contender status in the short term (within 5 years). It's actually rather shrewd considering the chain of events that will take place in that time frame.

Should he remain owner, his plan is likely to bottom out and spend close to the floor in the next few years, acquire and develop high end talent, and wait on his Seattle bonus money, followed by watching the value of the franchise skyrocket at the completion of Lebreton. By that time, high end youth would ideally be propelling the Senators back to contender status, and fans would be forgetful of the lows they experienced while running out the clock in Kanata.

As well, who's to say Eugene is interested in spending money to see us contend, only lose another potential championship season due to lockout (2021-2022)?

All in all, either his price is met in the short term and the team is sold with Karlsson staying put, or he hangs on for Lebreton, with a rough patch in the interim, but us fans naturally return come Lebreton. That's my theory.

 

[thammias]

How is building a new arena downtown that will probably cost close to half a billion dollars NOT investing in the franchise? It sucks that the hockey operations budget will probably take a hit during this process but the reality is that money has to come from somewhere. The City of Ottawa has taken the stand of not helping subsidize a new arena, which I'm fine with.

This narrative that Melnyk is cutting costs and raising things like parking just to line his own pockets is silly to me or are we just conveniently ignoring the fact that he's about to break dirt on a project that will likely cost him and his partners around 500 milllion dollars just so we can continue to be angry.