The Official Ottawa Sports Radio Thread #5

[ChelFan31]

Kudos to Donnie Brennan for going after the big fish in the pond and blaming Eugene Melnyk.

Melnyk is a classless, arrogant billionaire. It's about time someone in the Ottawa media went after him. Plenty of friends who won't attend a game until he sells. Penny pinching, loud mouth, meddling owner, who's got no class.

Suprised with all the air time TSN 1200 has each day; they failed to account /bring up "the Melnyk Factor " into all of this attendence issue.

Ian, honest question: does TSN 1200 purposely neglect to bring up "the Melnyk Factor" in order to maintain interview access to the owner / players / team? ...Because I can't see another reason for why you guys haven't brought up Melnyk as the reason people don't go to games. Did you see how he treated Dave Cameron last year or even Cyril Leeder this year or the former Cheif Marketing Officer ? Absolutely no class.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

Given the amount of venom on here towards my decision to bring Jeremy Roenick onto the station on Tuesday, I figured I would take a moment to chat about my thinking.

1. Jeremy Roenick is a very polarizing figure and I'm well aware of that. However, he's got a resume that includes 500+ goals in the NHL and a very big platform as a national analyst in the United States. So when somebody with that stature makes comments specifically about Ottawa, I believe it's in my best interest to try and hear if he has more to add to the conversation than just what he said on a Toronto radio station.

2. I specifically started the interview by asking Roenick about Game 3 of the Ottawa series actually selling out - despite the fact he said it wasn't. This seemed to be a bone of contention with a lot of people, so I wanted to offer him a platform to respond.

3. For those who have criticized my lack of interviewing skills, please understand that I'm not in the business of confronting people on the air. I will ask reasoned, well-thought out questions and treat all of our guests with respect -- as if they are a guest in my home. I'm not an antagonistic person by nature and I will ask respectful and pointed questions if necessary. I do not believe that Roenick needed to be blasted by me, because he had a passionate opinion about our inability to sell out playoff hockey games in the 3rd round. Did he need a lecture on the Phoenix pay system, local flooding, arena location, raised cost of parking, spending discretionary money on Redblacks tickets, etc. from me? I didn't think that was worthwhile because if you understand the situation in Ottawa, it's very complex. This was his opportunity to expand on why he felt it was embarrassing to not sell out hockey games and there are thousands of people in Ottawa who share his opinion. I didn't appreciate being called a "gutless puke" by one particular texter and I certainly don't agree with the accusations of laziness that many of you have pointed to in this thread.

4. I find it extremely interesting that I did SIX hours of radio yesterday and exactly ONE segment was focused on ticket sales in Game 6 and that happened to be with Roenick because he was so passionate about the topic. That means I spent roughly 5.5 hours talking Sens power play, Craig Anderson, could they bounce back from 7-0 loss, using Colin White, where is Stone/Hoffman, can they solve Matt Murray, etc. I literally spent 5.5 hours talking about things that weren't related to tickets....and yet some of you are acting like I'm this sensationalist dick of a journalist trying to push a false narrative. It's extremely upsetting when I put so much time and effort into this radio station and put together a great show for our listeners and yet you choose to look at one segment out of 24 that I did yesterday and paint me with an inaccurate brush.

5. Lastly, maybe you don't agree with Jeremy Roenick's opinion on the Senators ticket issue. And that's completely your right. But I am utterly blown away how so many people are unwilling to listen -- for ONE SEGMENT -- about a viewpoint that doesn't mesh with their own. Maybe just understand that the ticketing issue is a complex one and it generates a lot of passionate takes. Nobody has the magic bullet solution. I worked for the Sens front office and have covered this team for a combined 20 years. And I still couldn't give you one exact reason for why they failed to sell out a playoff game in the third round. But I would gladly listen to any and all people's opinion's on this matter because that's what makes talk radio fantastic. A variety of opinions that -- when all put together -- create a better picture of the truth.

I absolutely love doing this job for a living and as many of you can attest, I will absolutely engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussion. But calling me out for one segment and making it seem like I'm a major problem with the media in this town isn't the way to go.

A few weeks ago, I spent hours putting together this piece on the Sens ticketing issues. http://www.tsn.ca/there-s-no-playoff-fever-in-ottawa-only-sens-malaise-1.737420

There is nothing I do that isn't calculated, well thought out and well researched. You can accuse me of a lot of things, but please don't ever accuse of not putting any thought into lining up guests or interviewing them.

As always, you can e-mail me directly at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you. And for those of you who complain about Ottawa media not caring about your thoughts and opinions, I hope this post proves otherwise. I do care about what you think. But let's try and do this in a really positive and constructive way.

Hey Ian,

I think you are lobbing too many things together here. The problem certainly wasn't that you brought in an opposing viewpoint, it was the context and timing in which you made the decision to bring JR in. I don't know of any one person that was gearing up to watch the Sens stave off elimination that was in the mood to listen to someone bash the city and fans of Ottawa.

If you would have done the segment on any other day, maybe I personally wouldn't have given it a second thought(despite not agreeing with the decision), but on gameday? A few hours before puck drop? Really? Can you not see how most people were peeved? It was a huge bummer and I'd think the major station covering the team would rather hype the fans up rather than shame them into buying more tickets such as Roenick was doing.

Like I said, you're mixing up too many arguments into one. Most people criticizing you for the Roenick thing respect your work and think of you as a great ambassador for the team, but that doesn't mean we can't point out something we disagree with. It has nothing to do with the rest of your work in general.

 

[Flamingo]

Ian, I wasn't listening to the broadcast during Roenick's interview, but don't shy away from interviews like that. Like the Pierre segment, it doesn't matter if your guest is bringing a fresh take or is a raving loon, most listeners can form their own opinion and realize interviews aren't kangaroo court and nobody's honour is at stake.

 

[Stylizer1]

Kudos to Donnie Brennan for going after the big fish in the pond and blaming Eugene Melnyk.

Melnyk is a classless, arrogant billionaire. It's about time someone in the Ottawa media went after him. Plenty of friends who won't attend a game until he sells. Penny pinching, loud mouth, meddling owner, who's got no class.

Suprised with all the air time TSN 1200 has each day; they failed to account /bring up "the Melnyk Factor " into all of this attendence issue.

Ian, honest question: does TSN 1200 purposely neglect to bring up "the Melnyk Factor" in order to maintain interview access to the owner / players / team? ...Because I can't see another reason for why you guys haven't brought up Melnyk as the reason people don't go to games. Did you see how he treated Dave Cameron last year or even Cyril Leeder this year or the former Cheif Marketing Officer ? Absolutely no class.

They did bring it up as one of the reasons though. There many other reasons also. They even took callers.

 

[littleD]

JR is not a controversial figure, he's just really bad at his current job. There is no controversy there 500+ goals, great. That isn't what he does anymore.

What's next, Mike Millbury on the air when he blasts someone on the Sens for celebrating too much? No thanks.

It's a lot easier to find better guests than Jeremy Roenick. Literally anyone else in the hockey world in fact....

 

[BatherSeason]

Hey Ian,

I think you are lobbing too many things together here. The problem certainly wasn't that you brought in an opposing viewpoint, it was the context and timing in which you made the decision to bring JR in. I don't know of any one person that was gearing up to watch the Sens stave off elimination that was in the mood to listen to someone bash the city and fans of Ottawa.

If you would have done the segment on any other day, maybe I personally wouldn't have given it a second thought(despite not agreeing with the decision), but on gameday? A few hours before puck drop? Really? Can you not see how most people were peeved? It was a huge bummer and I'd think the major station covering the team would rather hype the fans up rather than shame them into buying more tickets such as Roenick was doing.

Like I said, you're mixing up too many arguments into one. Most people criticizing you for the Roenick thing respect your work and think of you as a great ambassador for the team, but that doesn't mean we can't point out something we disagree with. It has nothing to do with the rest of your work in general.

This is exactly what most think. Very bad timing.

 

[ianmendes]

Hey Ian,

I think you are lobbing too many things together here. The problem certainly wasn't that you brought in an opposing viewpoint, it was the context and timing in which you made the decision to bring JR in. I don't know of any one person that was gearing up to watch the Sens stave off elimination that was in the mood to listen to someone bash the city and fans of Ottawa.

If you would have done the segment on any other day, maybe I personally wouldn't have given it a second thought(despite not agreeing with the decision), but on gameday? A few hours before puck drop? Really? Can you not see how most people were peeved? It was a huge bummer and I'd think the major station covering the team would rather hype the fans up rather than shame them into buying more tickets such as Roenick was doing.

Like I said, you're mixing up too many arguments into one. Most people criticizing you for the Roenick thing respect your work and think of you as a great ambassador for the team, but that doesn't mean we can't point out something we disagree with. It has nothing to do with the rest of your work in general.

I don't think I'm lumping too many things together. Quite frankly if you look at the history of this thread in all of its incarnations, one of the major complaints posters have is that we don't put any thought or effort into our work. This has been a repeated accusation and one that sprung up again on the Roenick topic. So no, I'm not lobbing things together. There are people on this thread who believe we don't put in any thought or effort into our work.

Also, I'll respectfully disagree on the timing thing. It was actually the MOST relevant time to have that discussion because it was a couple of hours in advance of a game that was not sold out in the third round. You don't hold that story for a few days and say, "We'll get to this another day". That's not how the news cycle works. Stories have a shelf life and a conference final game not being sold out in Canada is a story that actually made waves across the country. I was getting interview requests from virtually every radio station across Canada who wanted to have me on to try and explain this to them. So to not even address it briefly on my own show would be extremely disingenuous.

And again, I was so mindful of not putting too much emphasis on that storyline that I said to myself, "We are going to do one segment on this over the course of six hours. And if we do, I'm going to grab someone who is really passionate about the topic."

But you're asking me to completely ignore a significant storyline a few hours before the start of a playoff game. The issue here is that you think the storyline isn't worth discussing. My counter argument is that it absolutely was something that merited a little bit of discussion on a game day, but I didn't want it to dominate the coverage.

I thought I struck a fair balance, but clearly there is a segment of the fan base that believes the only way to tackle that story -- was to not tackle it at all.

 

[ianmendes]

Kudos to Donnie Brennan for going after the big fish in the pond and blaming Eugene Melnyk.

Melnyk is a classless, arrogant billionaire. It's about time someone in the Ottawa media went after him. Plenty of friends who won't attend a game until he sells. Penny pinching, loud mouth, meddling owner, who's got no class.

Suprised with all the air time TSN 1200 has each day; they failed to account /bring up "the Melnyk Factor " into all of this attendence issue.

Ian, honest question: does TSN 1200 purposely neglect to bring up "the Melnyk Factor" in order to maintain interview access to the owner / players / team? ...Because I can't see another reason for why you guys haven't brought up Melnyk as the reason people don't go to games. Did you see how he treated Dave Cameron last year or even Cyril Leeder this year or the former Cheif Marketing Officer ? Absolutely no class.

A few weeks ago when we opened up the phone lines and let fans call in about their reasons for not going to games, several of them mentioned ownership as part of the reason. We didn't hang up on them when they blamed Melnyk.

And I'm sure we'll do a deep dive into this again at some point in the summer and we would absolutely invite people to share their reasons for not going to Sens games. I think I've found that there is a portion of the fanbase who don't go to the games because of the owner -- however, there are just as many who won't go because of the arena location or the price of tickets. As always, there isn't one smoking gun answer to the problem.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Didnt find much wrong with JRs take on the attendance issue, the bits about the boring style and trap stuff is tired and such a lazy narrative to pump out. Ottawa is playing no different than many past teams many who won the cup that did not recieve such over the top scrutiny.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

I don't think I'm lumping too many things together. Quite frankly if you look at the history of this thread in all of its incarnations, one of the major complaints posters have is that we don't put any thought or effort into our work. This has been a repeated accusation and one that sprung up again on the Roenick topic. So no, I'm not lobbing things together. There are people on this thread who believe we don't put in any thought or effort into our work.

Also, I'll respectfully disagree on the timing thing. It was actually the MOST relevant time to have that discussion because it was a couple of hours in advance of a game that was not sold out in the third round. You don't hold that story for a few days and say, "We'll get to this another day". That's not how the news cycle works. Stories have a shelf life and a conference final game not being sold out in Canada is a story that actually made waves across the country. I was getting interview requests from virtually every radio station across Canada who wanted to have me on to try and explain this to them. So to not even address it briefly on my own show would be extremely disingenuous.

And again, I was so mindful of not putting too much emphasis on that storyline that I said to myself, "We are going to do one segment on this over the course of six hours. And if we do, I'm going to grab someone who is really passionate about the topic."

But you're asking me to completely ignore a significant storyline a few hours before the start of a playoff game. The issue here is that you think the storyline isn't worth discussing. My counter argument is that it absolutely was something that merited a little bit of discussion on a game day, but I didn't want it to dominate the coverage.

I thought I struck a fair balance, but clearly there is a segment of the fan base that believes the only way to tackle that story -- was to not tackle it at all.

The timing of it was insensitive. This is the first time in 10 years that the Senators have made the ECF. Add to that at the time the game wasn't sold out so forgive a segment of the fanbase for being a little defensive after weeks of ridicule from other fanbases and neighboring cities to only have to listen to Jeremy Roenick on top of random people **** on the attendance issue and the Ottawa fanbase.

That being said the people who don't like your work is in the minority.

 

[Big Tuna]

I think the switch to Ticketmaster has been a killer for Sens ticket sales. When they lump the resell tickets right in with the standard tickets, you're taking away from potential "new" sales. When I can wait until 2 days before an event and see tickets that have been dumped for lower than standard price without even needing to go to an outside website like Stubhub, that is a problem.

The reason game 6 didn't sell out in my opinion is that a lot of people gave up on the team after that blow out and dumped their game 6 tickets. So anybody that wanted to go to the game had just as many resell ticket options to choose from as the standard tickets. And that is directly at the main source of Sens tickets sales! If the resell tickets weren't being sold directly from the Sens main ticket website, I don't think we would have seen as many unsold seats as we have this season.

I know Ottawa is not unique in the way that Ticketmaster works, but in a market that has always had a big walk up aspect to it, walking up and having a large number of 2nd hand tickets at your disposal has to hurt the "new" sale numbers.

 

[Inkling]

And again, I was so mindful of not putting too much emphasis on that storyline that I said to myself, "We are going to do one segment on this over the course of six hours. And if we do, I'm going to grab someone who is really passionate about the topic."

"Passionate" in this case does not equate to knowledgable. Anyone who has heard JR on TV knows that if you want to get some depth on an issue, he doesn't bring much of substance. It doesn't matter how many goals he has in the NHL if none of that experience actually translates to his TV job. It's radio click-bait.

But you're asking me to completely ignore a significant storyline a few hours before the start of a playoff game. The issue here is that you think the storyline isn't worth discussing. My counter argument is that it absolutely was something that merited a little bit of discussion on a game day, but I didn't want it to dominate the coverage.

Don't ignore it, but what did you think it would accomplish bringing on someone with absolutely no knowledge of the issue who was only selected because he recently bashed the Senators fanbase based upon incorrect information? He's already established he has done no research on the issue. Did he have magic nugget of knowledge from playing for the Olympiques that you thought would solve the mystery?

 

[ianmendes]

"Passionate" in this case does not equate to knowledgable. Anyone who has heard JR on TV knows that if you want to get some depth on an issue, he doesn't bring much of substance. It doesn't matter how many goals he has in the NHL if none of that experience actually translates to his TV job. It's radio click-bait.

Don't ignore it, but what did you think it would accomplish bringing on someone with absolutely no knowledge of the issue who was only selected because he recently bashed the Senators fanbase based upon incorrect information? He's already established he has done no research on the issue. Did he have magic nugget of knowledge from playing for the Olympiques that you thought would solve the mystery?

First: If it's radio click-bait, I would have been tweeting it 10x and teeing it up all day. Go back and check my Twitter feed and listen to the podcast of the first three hours and see how many times I pushed the interview and then maybe you'll re-think your 'click-bait' accusation.

Second: What did I think it would accomplish? When a story like this is out there, it's massive -- whether you think so or not. So the external perception of somebody is actually valid in this case. I wouldn't bring on an outside guest to ask them what they think the ticket issues are in Ottawa. That would be asinine. The idea is to bring somebody in to paint a picture of what the rest of the hockey world is thinking that we can't sell out a third round playoff game.

And once you get to the third round of the playoffs, the eyes of the entire hockey world are on you, whether you like it or not.

 

[Macca]

Kudos to Donnie Brennan for going after the big fish in the pond and blaming Eugene Melnyk.

Melnyk is a classless, arrogant billionaire. It's about time someone in the Ottawa media went after him. Plenty of friends who won't attend a game until he sells. Penny pinching, loud mouth, meddling owner, who's got no class.

Suprised with all the air time TSN 1200 has each day; they failed to account /bring up "the Melnyk Factor " into all of this attendence issue.

Ian, honest question: does TSN 1200 purposely neglect to bring up "the Melnyk Factor" in order to maintain interview access to the owner / players / team? ...Because I can't see another reason for why you guys haven't brought up Melnyk as the reason people don't go to games. Did you see how he treated Dave Cameron last year or even Cyril Leeder this year or the former Cheif Marketing Officer ? Absolutely no class.

Wow! Bang-on!! Ian has been the main promoter of the SENS' attendance issues from Day 1 including a page 1 article on TSN's website and never once has mentioned the "Melnyk" factor, so I think the answer is fairly obvious.

An objective article in Deadspin today regarding our so-called attendance issues. Ian should read it.

http://deadspin.com/shut-up-about-ottawas-attendance-1795506802

 

[ianmendes]

Wow! Bang-on!! Ian has been the main promoter of the SENS' attendance issues from Day 1 including a page 1 article on TSN's website and never once has mentioned the "Melnyk" factor, so I think the answer is fairly obvious.

An objective article in Deadspin today regarding our so-called attendance issues. Ian should read it.

http://deadspin.com/shut-up-about-ottawas-attendance-1795506802

From my TSN.ca article a few weeks ago:

Some blamed ownership, claiming the club was unwilling to pour the necessary resources into the building a championship-calibre team. Many fans simply lamented the general direction of the organization, feeling like they were simply toiling somewhere between average and mediocre.

The link to the entire article can be found here: http://www.tsn.ca/there-s-no-playoff-fever-in-ottawa-only-sens-malaise-1.737420

So stop with the narrative that I've never mentioned ownership as a factor. There it is -- listed directly among the reasons for why some people are staying away. I don't understand why people are allowed to make up stuff on this thread and it passes for fact.

I also find it interesting that you like the Deadspin article, which was written by Barry who lives in the U.S. Funny, when someone writes a column you agree with, it suddenly doesn't matter where they come from. But when someone has an opinion that doesn't mesh with yours, he's a blowhard from the United States who doesn't know our market.

 

[Big Tuna]

Anybody that stays away because they don't like the owner in the 3rd round of the playoffs..... no words for people like that. That's just searching for any excuse to not spend the money.

 

[BatherSeason]

First: If it's radio click-bait, I would have been tweeting it 10x and teeing it up all day. Go back and check my Twitter feed and listen to the podcast of the first three hours and see how many times I pushed the interview and then maybe you'll re-think your 'click-bait' accusation.

Second: What did I think it would accomplish? When a story like this is out there, it's massive -- whether you think so or not. So the external perception of somebody is actually valid in this case. I wouldn't bring on an outside guest to ask them what they think the ticket issues are in Ottawa. That would be asinine. The idea is to bring somebody in to paint a picture of what the rest of the hockey world is thinking that we can't sell out a third round playoff game.

And once you get to the third round of the playoffs, the eyes of the entire hockey world are on you, whether you like it or not.

Are we gonna talk about the "ticket issue" in Pittsburgh for tonight's game?? Maybe we should bring JR back on to see what he thinks about it.

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

Eh, I was fine with the interview. When I was in the car and heard that JR was coming on, I went "oh, this will be good".

It fired me up. Us against the world. Maybe it even inadvertently sold some extra tickets and got others fired up too.

 

[Macca]

From my TSN.ca article a few weeks ago:

Some blamed ownership, claiming the club was unwilling to pour the necessary resources into the building a championship-calibre team. Many fans simply lamented the general direction of the organization, feeling like they were simply toiling somewhere between average and mediocre.

So stop with the narrative that I've never mentioned ownership as a factor. There it is -- listed directly among the reasons for why some people are staying away. I don't understand why people are allowed to make up stuff on this thread and it passes for fact.

I also find it interesting that you like the Deadspin article, which was written by Barry who lives in the U.S. Funny, when someone writes a column you agree with, it suddenly doesn't matter where they come from. But when someone has an opinion that doesn't mesh with yours, he's a blowhard from the United States who doesn't know our market.

OK. My mistake. Your TSN article does mention Ottawa's owner, my apologies for that, For the record, though, I didn't notice who Barry is or where he lives when I read his article, I just happen to agree 100% with the content of it.

This is also my first post on this board in about four years, so I don't know what you are referring to in your last paragraph. I'm just tired of the nonsense this over-exposed topic has created, mostly caused by an owner - who has nobody to blame but himself - if he thinks this city does not support the SENS enough because a few seats have remained empty during the playoffs.

 

[Canadian Time]

Ian, I should probably clarify my lazy comment as it was not intended to describe your work ethic. In fact I believe you put more into your work than most.

What I meant by lazy was deferring to the easy story hours before a big game. You yourself mention the phrase news cycle. What do we care about news cycle, that's a term coined by those in the media. Right or wrong, in my mind it's a euphemism for, hey look, this seems like a sexy story that we can recycle over and over until the average person doesn't care any more.

This is not whatsoever about opposing views, bring them on. This was about a very poor time to bring this guy on.

Sens fans have been taking a beating from the large media centres for 25 years now, we're used to it. A few hours before a huge game we don't need our local media to facilitate the bleating for the sake of your news cycle.

By the way, your Anselmi interview was excellent. This guy is very thoughtful and it was refreshing to hear his take on how they are going to solve it.

 

[Smash88]

From my TSN.ca article a few weeks ago:

Some blamed ownership, claiming the club was unwilling to pour the necessary resources into the building a championship-calibre team. Many fans simply lamented the general direction of the organization, feeling like they were simply toiling somewhere between average and mediocre.

The link to the entire article can be found here: http://www.tsn.ca/there-s-no-playoff-fever-in-ottawa-only-sens-malaise-1.737420

So stop with the narrative that I've never mentioned ownership as a factor. There it is -- listed directly among the reasons for why some people are staying away. I don't understand why people are allowed to make up stuff on this thread and it passes for fact.

I also find it interesting that you like the Deadspin article, which was written by Barry who lives in the U.S. Funny, when someone writes a column you agree with, it suddenly doesn't matter where they come from. But when someone has an opinion that doesn't mesh with yours, he's a blowhard from the United States who doesn't know our market.

This is a staple of HF, just keep repeating the same thing over and over again and eventually you will get a few people to agree with you, then keep it going and a few more will agree and so on.. This just keeps getting worse, it's a major reason why quite a few quality posters have left in the past few years. They would write a well thought out post only to have someone come in, ignore it and spew the same garbage again.

Now, I agree with most of what you are saying, I thought the JR interview was a bit off-putting, only in the sense that it was the same stereotypes we keep hearing.

We aren't like Toronto or Montreal and never will be. It frustrates me when people simply can't grasp that. No other Canadian city deals with diehard fans actively trying to bring down the home team within their own city!

Walk into any office building or any place of work and take of poll of the allegiances. It's insane how Ottawa is usually in a minority. No other city deals with that. Even my kids, who are 7 and 5 don't want to wear a senators jersey because they are in a minority at school, my youngest has it in his head that he has to cheer for Pittsburgh in this series because that's who all the other kids are cheering for.

I work at Place du Portage, with a mix of Gatineau and Ottawa residents, the amount of grief I get for having a Sens flag in my office is crazy. It's only been getting worse as these playoffs have kept going. In my division of 10 people, I am the only Sens fan, out of my good group of friends we are about 20% Sens fans.

You would think with this run, people would be happy. It's the exact opposite, I need to defend the Sens every single day. After every loss I have people running over to my desk to assure me the Sens are done now and they take great pleasure in that. Instead of talking about the game, I need to answer why it wasn't sold out or why Karlsson is a 4th forward (still get that) or that we play a boring style (I seriously got told that after the Pageau 4 goal game, that despite that, it was a very boring game)

I absolutely love hockey and the Sens, but it has become very tiresome to be a Sens fan. I can see why someone who isn't as bullish as me about it, would just simply give up.

You can only take so much before you do. I just think the Roenick thing struck a final nerve with some people. We are constantly belittled and at the same time called sensitive, so I think some people are just looking for someone on a national level to finally stand up for the Sens and give a well thought out response to the "OMG Ottawa is a Canadian market and can't sell out!!!"

I'm rambling here, but I really enjoy your work Ian, I don't always agree with the programming, but people need to realize they will never agree with it 100%.

Thank you for letting me vent a bit. It is awesome that you come here, most media members wouldn't dare come in here, and I really do appreciate it.

As always Go Sens Go! Keep up the good fight!

 

[Inkling]

Even my kids, who are 7 and 5 don't want to wear a senators jersey because they are in a minority at school, my youngest has it in his head that he has to cheer for Pittsburgh in this series because that's who all the other kids are cheering for.

That sounds like quite the school! I'm going to have to talk to my kids when I get home tonight. I have one in elementary and one in high school and they both cheer for the Sens but now I'm curious what the situation is like in their schools. I know most of their immediate friends cheer for Ottawa too but don't know the greater picture. I know on my younger one's hockey team this past season it was about 60% Sens fans.

 

[coladin]

Why do you care so much? Honestly, it sounds like you're the one who's sensitive. Who cares about what other people are doing. Get over it. It shouldn't affect you this much.

I care so much because it craps on those who support the team. I actually care a great deal of how great my city is. It is one of the best places to live in the world and I am fiercely protective of my city.

Now, compared to the excuse makers who like watching on their big screens and can't deal with traffic for an ECF final game, they have succeeded in making Ottawa look bad, as media as hitched their wagon to the boring , government town Ottawa stereotype. Anyone who has been to these games knows that is BS. Look at how Bobby Ryan loves it here. The world looks at Ottawa a certain way. Our won country and other hockey markets laugh at our city and it irritates me to read excuse after excuse.

There were 25$ tickets empty all year long. There were 50$ tickets empty all year long. Now, those same tickets at 120$ are empty in an ECF.

People want to complain about the corporate fanbase? Last I checked the two bottom effin bowls are not the problem. The pricey seats are taken care of, but the cheapest ones are not.

If it were a price issue, it would be empty below and jammed up top, but it isn't.

Which is why it is apathy, laziness and fake fans. Hopefully another 25 years will fix it once and for all.

 

[coladin]

The last fan base that should be poking fun at any team is EDM. They were perennial losers for over a decade and had the luxury of of winning the lottery multiple times.

Question for EDM fans, did you enjoy watching the Oilers play last night???

Can you not grasp their passion for their team? they filled the arena on away games. They always support their team. Which is why they cannot fathom how we can't fill our place at this stage in the playoffs.

Oh right, but that makes them look stupid for doing so I guess. Like Toronto, supporting their team in bad years makes for dumb fans. I call them passionate. Everyone here wants to punish the Senators organization for not winning, a lot of good that does right? Like Chiarelli feels EXTRA pressure because they can't sell tickets? These teams, they all want and need to win. All these years, you think for the fact that Toronto was sold out that the team actively tries not to win??? Their tickets sales is just a morsel of the revenue monster that the Toronto Maple Leafs are.

But leave it to his "smart" fanbase that punish the players diving in front of shots because Melnyk this, Melnyk that. **** and support your team. Not you per say, but in general!

 

[Smash88]

That sounds like quite the school! I'm going to have to talk to my kids when I get home tonight. I have one in elementary and one in high school and they both cheer for the Sens but now I'm curious what the situation is like in their schools. I know most of their immediate friends cheer for Ottawa too but don't know the greater picture. I know on my younger one's hockey team this past season it was about 60% Sens fans.

Yeah might be worse at their school or maybe just a few select loud kids. Not really sure.

They did send a note home saying not to wear jerseys at school because it was causing fights.