Landscapers work around Ottawa Senators NHL team signage at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa on June 13.The Canadian Press
“This ain’t no joke!”
So sayeth the rapper Snoop Dogg early in the proceedings to sell the Ottawa Senators. There were times, however, when it certainly seemed like one.
On Tuesday, Senators Sports & Entertainment announced that a group of investors led by Toronto billionaire Michael Andlauer would be purchasing 90 per cent of the NHL club. Anna and Olivia Melnyk, daughters of late owner Eugene Melnyk, will retain a 10-per-cent interest in the franchise.
The modern Senators, first dreamed up by Bruce Firestone, Randy Sexton and Cyril Leeder after a local beer-league hockey game, are now owned by a former beer-league goalkeeper who came up with US$950-million to post the winning bid.
To gain some sense of the ridiculous values in modern sports, know that the Firestone-led group paid US$50-million for the franchise in 1990, and that Melnyk bought the franchise out of bankruptcy in 2003 for $130-million.
The team finished last in its inaugural season, 1992-93, but the fans loved them anyway. When thieves broke into the team’s practice facility and made off with all the video equipment, leaving behind the game tapes, assistant coach E.J. McGuire tagged them “Burglars with taste.”
The club built a new rink in Ottawa’s Kanata suburb and, under Melnyk’s tenure, reached the Stanley Cup final in 2007. Since then, it has been mostly disappointment and Melnyk-driven turmoil. At one point, he threatened to move the team if ticket sales didn’t improve. During the 2017-18 season, disgruntled fans took to billboards – hashtag #MelnykOut – and the team hasn’t made the playoffs since.
To avoid paying to the NHL salary cap, the Senators either traded away or let go several of the most beloved stars, including Mark Stone, captain of the Stanley-Cup-winning Vegas Golden Knights. Daniel Alfredsson, the long-time captain of the Senators, retired back to Ottawa but would eventually have nothing to do with Melnyk’s team.
Melnyk – who had a much-publicized liver transplant in 2015 – died in March, 2022. Since then, the team has been run by a board of directors led by president Anthony LeBlanc. The Melnyk daughters decided in the fall that they would put their father’s debt-ridden franchise up for sale.
Suddenly it seemed everyone who was anybody wanted in. Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds said he wanted to be involved, attended games in Ottawa and soon linked with the Remington Group on a bid. Then it was Snoop Dogg joining Los Angeles producer Neko Sparks. The Neko bid soon included comedian Russell Peters, several investors from the Dragons’ Den television show and Olympic sprinter Donovan Bailey, who told CBC he was a “100-per-cent” Toronto Maple Leafs fan.
Reynolds’s group dropped out before the May 15 deadline after failing to arrange extra time in which to explore the possibilities of building a new rink close to downtown Ottawa. Many have long argued that the Kanata rink is too far out for downtown and cross-river fans.
(Melnyk had previously worked with a local developer to launch a massive rink-retail-and-residential project on National Capital Commission land closer to Parliament Hill, but the proposed partnership soon dissolved in lawsuits.)
Four groups remained in the hunt. Andlauer, who made his fortune through health care transportation, seemed the obvious choice, pending NHL board of governors’ approval. He already has links to the league through a minority ownership in the Montreal Canadiens (which he would have to sell if the league approves his bid). He has owned both an AHL and an OHL junior team in Hamilton. His teams have won several championships.
Melnyk, who lived in Barbados, never moved to Ottawa. Andlauer, who grew up in Montreal and lives in Oakville, has said he will relocate to Ottawa to be closer to what is now his main business concern. He has also, wisely, taken on local partners such as the Malhotra family that has Claridge Homes and Jeff York of the successful Farm Boy grocery chain.
Ottawa is a fickle sports town that can be difficult to read from a distance. Andlauer said in a statement that “the Senators’ fan base is one of the most passionate in the league,” but emotions can run in different directions. Having lost the Senators once (1934) and almost a second time (2003), having lost and regained its football team, Ottawa fans suffer separation anxiety in the air and on the airwaves.
Andlauer, like Melnyk, would be coming to Senators ownership when the team is on the rise. Just as Melnyk had Alfredsson, Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza, Andlauer will come to a team largely built by general manager Pierre Dorion that features young stars such as Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson. Attendance soared this past season when it seemed the team might reach the playoffs after six fallow springs.
As for a new rink, Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe openly mused this week on CityNews radio that it could end up closer to downtown than anyone imagined.
Remote working has put the downtown core into what the Board of Trade has called an “existential” crisis. And given that the federal government has said it plans to rid itself of as much as half of its properties….
Why not within a Zamboni ride of Parliament Hill?
Ain’t no joke, Snoop.