FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Professional sports are fun to watch and debate for various reasons. People love action, people love hometown boasting, people love acquiring heroes and watching them duke it out with the personification of golems on the other team. To put it in Sigmund Freud's words, professional sports play on our id, a section of our psychic apparatus, satisfying our need for primal aggression and "seething excitations."

However, professional sports would not exist today if they were founded on Freudian values or human loves. It may have worked at the turn of the century, but these days, professional sports' lifeblood is money. You need money to have an arena, stadium, or even a sandlot for practice. You need money to get players, and even more money to get the best players. You need money to pay for advertisement, arena employees, and other amenities. Managing it all is paramount in order to ensure a successful professional team.

Sadly, in 2002-2003, the Ottawa Senators failed at this essential task.

They went bankrupt, ending up $166.2 Million in debt. To give you an idea of how embarrassing the Senators' bankruptcy was, consider than in the twenty-nine years previous only two teams in the Big Four filed for bankruptcy. Account for the fact that the Senators were leading their conference at the time, and would end up coming within a goal of the Stanley Cup finals. Most of all, realize that Canada was, is, and always will be THE hotbed for hockey.

There are several schools of thought as to why the Senators collapsed. One is that the loonie was struggling mightily, which I cannot deny played a huge role. In January 2003, the loonie was hovering around 65 cents on the American dollar, which would naturally spell trouble for Canadian teams, especially those that didn't hedge their funds by loading up on American dollars when the loonie's value was higher (all salaries are paid in U.S. Dollars).

Another theory is that Rod Bryden, the owner of the Sens, just wasn't rich enough to run a professional sports team. Bryden's wealth was more suited to owning a CFL team. However, he more than made up for it with underrated negotiation skills. Case in point: years later, when he himself went bankrupt, he negotiated $100 Million dollars of debt down to $600,000. He may not have been the richest or smartest guy, but he had a rare business savvy that ended up garnering him a wealth of solid assets. Still, his savvy didn't stop him from racking up the debt.

Yet another theory is that the crash of Ottawa's high-tech market led to the crash of the Sens. While it's true that Ottawa as a whole was losing value, I don't buy the fact that it led to the Sens' downfall.

No, the theory that I am espousing is quite simple: the Ottawa Senators made a Canadian city not care about their hockey team.

For those who seem surprised, don't be. People will say, "Oh, the Sens get tons of fans!" That hasn't always been true, though. At the time the team went bankrupt, Ottawa ranked 16th out of 30 in the league for attendance for the season. That may not seem so bad, until you see that Ottawa only drew 16,355 people on average for a magnificent 18,500-seat arena that the team was still in debt for. Oh, and factor in the weak loonie, too.

So, one may ask, why did the fans of a city of 1,000,000 that had proved it loves hockey and loved the Senators run away from the successful team? The answer is quite simple: disgust.

If you have been following my blog, you probably realize that I have a slight quibble with Alexei Yashin. If you haven't, Yashin was an egoistic swine who helped alienate fans, teammates, and a city. Yet, Yashin had been gone for a year by the time the crash occurred. It takes more than a year to heal a broken relationship with a city, however. This was the Sens' struggle.

During the Yashin era, fans lost their adulation for the plucky Sens. Blue-collar and white-collar Ottawa quickly became disgusted with the prima donna attitude the Senators were espousing. Even though Yashin was gone, the city was skeptical with the team, and didn't like them. People fell back on their old Leafs or Habs rooting interests. The shine off the team instantly faded.

When the shine was gone, people didn't feel like shilling out for tickets, especially in a market that was slipping. When the tickets weren't selling, the team didn't get the money it needed to succeed. And when the team didn't get the money, the external factors became too much to bear, and the team was forced to unfortunately succumb. Luckily, Eugene Melnyk rode in on his white horse and saved the Senators from likely relocation.

Lost amidst all this external hubbub was the development of a promising third round draft pick in 2001, a goalie from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. His name, Ray Emery.