Multiple parties have confirmed that the Ottawa Senators and the NHL have toyed with the idea of bringing up to 5 games to Quebec City’s Videotron Centre, as early as next season.
Quebec’s Finance Minister Eric Girard told reporters Wednesday that there was mutual interest between the province and the NHL when he met with commissioner Gary Bettman in January. In exchange for the right to host 5 games, Quebec City would reportedly prepare a “financial package” to act as compensation for the Senators.
News of the potential relocation of home games comes only days after the Senators announced that longtime owner Eugene Melnyk had passed away. The report, which first appeared in Wednesday morning’s edition of “La Presse” (a digital French language newspaper based out of Montreal), did however note that the talks were only in the preliminary stages.
According to a subsequent CTV report, when reached for comment Senators’ President Anthony LeBlanc indicated that Girard had expressed an interest in hosting games, however they never engaged in any formal negotiations.
Reaction to the news amongst the Senators fan base was swift and largely pessimistic. Many questioned the rationale behind the move, with some openly wondering whether there was more to the announcement than just a handful of games for a hockey starved city.
Quebec City hasn’t hidden the fact that they desperately want an NHL franchise. The Nordiques began in the WHA in 1972, before joining the NHL full time in 1979. However in 1995, the franchise relocated to Colorado, leaving the Quebec City fans without a club to cheer for.
Fast forward to 2022 and the city has a beautiful new 18,000 seat arena which hosts the QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts, but no NHL franchise. The province famously submitted an expansion bid following the Videotron Centre’s opening in 2015, however the league instead chose Las Vegas as the recipient of a new NHL team. A subsequent expansion team in Seattle was a disappointment for the Quebec City group, but evidently hasn’t deterred them from their ultimate goal.
While there has always been a strong desire from Quebec to acquire a 2nd NHL franchise, interest from the league’s ownership group hasn’t been reciprocal. Until perhaps now.
The Senators did confirm they were in talks to submit a joint bid to host the 2023 World Juniors with Quebec City. However it appears as though that’s as far as they believed negotiations had gone. The IIHF famously stripped Russia of its hosting rights for the 2023 event following its attack on Ukraine.
If a 5 game Quebec City stint is indeed in the cards, it would be an anomaly for the NHL schedule. While Ottawa and Colorado played two games in Stockholm, Sweden back in 2017, guest-host home games are far from the league norm.
The Senators are currently dead last in the league in terms of average attendance with 7,834 fans per night according to ESPN. However that figure is largely skewed owing to Canada’s more stringent restrictions throughout the pandemic. Toronto and Montreal, who are virtually locks to be in the top 5 for attendance each season, currently sit in 20th and 24th place respectively.
So while nothing has been decided as of yet, Sens fans can be excused for feeling a bit uneasy when it comes to news of potentially losing home games. With no public announcements of concrete plans for a transfer of power at the ownership level, Ottawa is heading into one of their most critical offseasons in franchise history. Both in terms of their on ice roster, and off ice governance.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner