Ottawa slowly warming up to Senators playoff run with trip to final on the line

OTTAWA — John Couse’s bar is quiet on a weekday afternoon as he looks ahead to the weekend.

Game 1 of the NHL eastern conference final is Saturday night, with the Ottawa Senators four wins away from the Stanley Cup final.

The path through the playoffs has been anything but smooth off the ice. Couse said turnout at his pub — the Lieutenant’s Pump along a strip the city has dubbed Sens Mile — was smaller than expected for the first three playoff games.

The team’s first-round series against the Boston Bruins saw empty seats at the first home game, which prompted questions about the city’s relationship with its hockey team.

“It really didn’t feel like we normally do for playoff hockey,” Couse says of the early games.

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“Now that we’re in the thick of it and the Sens have proven that they are a legitimate playoff team, I think everyone is paying attention.”

Few in this city expect to see fans become rowdy or get painted in team colours like Oakland Raiders fans. It’s just not the mentality of the capital, says Eric MacIntosh, an associate professor in the school of human kinetics at the University of Ottawa, whose research includes fan behaviour. Instead, the fans here are more subdued and excitement for the team has been slow to build. 

After the Senators ousted the New York Rangers from the playoffs, fans danced in the middle of Sens Mile and others welcomed the team home at the airport at 1:30 a.m.

“You see the clip of the fans dancing in the street when the light is green. In Ottawa, we’re so nice when the light gets red, we (usually) get out of the way,” Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said during the team’s off-day on Thursday.

The Senators have been a part of the city since 1992, inserting themselves into a region previously divided primarily between Toronto and Montreal fans. The Senators have neither the history that the Maple Leafs have with the city of Toronto, nor cultural connections like the Canadiens, who are woven into the fabric of French Canadian society.

The transient nature of Ottawa’s population that includes civil servants, political staffers and students, further complicates the team’s local reach, since those who come from away bring their own allegiances that don’t suddenly change to Senators’ red. It’s a similar situation on display in Washington, D.C., where the city is defined by being the capital and not by the Capitals themselves.

“Regions where the identity of the team is very closely tied to the identity of the region are more likely to have ostentatious displays of team support,” says Eric Simons, author of “The Secret Lives of Sports Fans.”

“If you asked someone to name a thing about Cleveland, the teams are among the first few things to come up, versus a place like San Francisco or New York where the sports teams are an important, but nonetheless, fractional part of city life.”

There are myriad other issues that are cited for why the Sens don’t seem to be top of mind in the city, including their suburban arena, the price of tickets, repeated playoff efforts that fizzled, no clear idea about how player trades and acquisitions are designed to ensure long-term success and even the federal government’s Phoenix pay system fiasco, which left some civil servants underpaid or not paid at all and unable to pay for a game.

There is also what TSN Radio Ottawa host Ian Mendes calls a mix of apathy and anger simmering under the surface. It’s hard to explain, he says, but it ties into the complexities of the local market.

“It’s something really hard to put your finger on because if there was one clear answer or smoking gun reason for the attendance issues this season, I believe the hockey club would have addressed it,” he says.

Ross Arnold, 26, found that he became more public in his allegiance to the Senators after he left Ottawa. He says he started following Senators’ blogs once surrounded by Leafs fans when he went to the University of Waterloo as a way to tap into the social connectedness that drives many people to support a specific team.

“The Sens fans outside of Ottawa have to be more vocal about it,” said Arnold, managing editor of the sports site SilverSevenSens.com. “You need other people to share with. In Ottawa, if you assume that most people are at least casually interested in the Sens or at least would rather have the Sens win than have them lose, it’s not as important,”.

The team is hoping that will change. Dorion tipped his cap to the team’s true fans this week, before adding that anyone who wants to jump on the bandwagon is more than welcome.

– With files from Lisa Wallace

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press