The Ottawa Senators kicked off their home opener with a good old fashioned track meet vs. the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night, ultimately prevailing 7-5.
While the on-ice play was entertaining, if not chaotic at times, it was the atmosphere that was the talk of the town following the home team’s victory Wednesday morning.
For the first time in 5 years, Ottawa felt like a hockey town again. And that effect wasn’t lost on the players either, who had a visible energy to their game right out the gates. “It was pretty amazing. I don’t think in all the rinks I’ve felt that excited for a game before,” Brady Tkachuk said in a post game interview. “Credit to all the fans who came out tonight, because that was definitely an amazing experience.”
Keep in mind that for hometown hero Claude Giroux and newly acquired winger Alex DeBrincat, this was their first taste of what a home game was like in a Senators uniform. Even more than that, for more “tenured” Senators players (and I use the term loosely) it was their first true home opener due to the pandemic and provincial restrictions on gatherings. Even the most jaded of hockey fans has to admit that the CTC was rocking on Tuesday night, feeling more like a playoff game than a mid October showdown.
For longtime Sens fans, Tuesday night was the perfect blend of old and new. It would have been easy to throw out the script and completely start over given the changes to management and ownership. But for a team still struggling to carve out an identity in the NHL, there’s something to be said about a modicum of continuity between generations of Senators supporters.
It’s sometimes easy to forget, given the fact that Ottawa’s sandwiched between arguably the league’s two most iconic franchises in Toronto and Montreal, but October 18th marked the 30th home opener in franchise history. An entire generation of Senators fans have been born, grown up, and may have even had kids of their own at this point. The club has seen its fair share of miscues over the years (everyone remembers the audio challenged Gladiator promo), but some constants remain.
The offseason saw rampant debate amongst the fanbase about what needed to change with regards to the organization in the wake of Eugene Melnyk’s passing. Everything from the front office to in game music was on the table at some point.
To his credit, Senators in game DJ Alex Marchand did a masterful job of updating playlists, while keeping some classics to help bridge generations at the opener. While some may claim “Chunka”, “Danger Flutes”, and “Song 2” by Blur have been showing their age for some time now, you can’t argue with the fact that when they come across the CTC speakers, you know what’s happening. They evoke nostalgia which brings you back to your first Sens game. And for an organization not nearly as steeped in tradition as its two closest rivals, that has to be viewed as a positive.
The club has also done well by modernizing its views on fan, and influencer relationships. On Tuesday fans could show up early for the $5 beer garden. This weekend vs. Arizona the club will be holding its now seemingly annual Oktoberfest pre-game. Renovations to include things such as the Fan Deck, and more robust food & beverage offerings have also done well to create more of an “experience” beyond just pizza and popcorn.
The team’s ticketing department has begun to work alongside influencers such as the Locked on Sens Podcast to open special blocks of tickets for fans of the show. The experiment went so well that they ultimately had to issue multiple waves of tickets to meet the demand from listeners. Benjamin Milks, better known by his Twitter handle @Brian5or6, was onsite to take part in one of the in game contests during a stoppage in play.
Former players are now flocking back to the organization as Wade Redden, Jesse Winchester, and Shean Donovan have all signed on as player development coaches. Newly minted VP of Business Operations Chris Phillips was on hand to present a soldier with a Sens jersey during a commercial break. And former Sens enforcer Chris Neil has been promoted to VP of Business and Community Development in recent months as well.
But the biggest ovation of the night was when the club officially mended their (long overdue) relationship with Ottawa icon, and HHOF inductee Daniel Alfredsson. Alfie, who had distanced himself from the club in recent years due to a strained relationship with Melnyk, returned to U2’s “Beautiful Day” and a walk out fit for a WWE superstar to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff.
With one of the team’s most beloved players back in the fold, the largest crowd at the CTC in over 5 years, and a roster that’s closer to the salary cap ceiling than floor for the first time in recent memory, the team came out flying in the 1st scoring 3 unanswered goals in short order.
Perhaps the most refreshing thing to take in as one looked around the standing room only crowd was the lack of Boston jerseys in the crowd. In recent years it was hard to discern which squad was supposed to be the home team based on the fairly evenly split crowds. Leafs, Habs, Bruins, hell even Ducks jerseys were common sights during the rebuilding seasons as fans elected to stay home and watch the games rather than make the pilgrimage out to Kanata.
But as you looked around the CTC on Tuesday at the sheer number of kids in Stutzle t-shirts, and parents in Tkachuk and Chabot jerseys, one couldn’t help but be amazed at how the city has embraced this young roster.
For years Sens fans had been blasted for not showing their team the kind of blind support that Canadiens or Leafs fans showed their clubs. But few outside of the Ottawa-Gatineau area fully grasped just how tenuous the relationship between ownership and the fans/business community truly was.
More than a few supporters had quipped over the years that they would return in droves once there was a tangible change with the direction of the franchise. And on Tuesday night, Ottawa proved they were a community of their word, as the Senators had the largest crowd across the entire league.
A new era of Senators ownership, management, coaching, and fandom is officially here. And for the first time in a long time, Ottawa once again feels like a true hockey town.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner