You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS
Sports fandom is a funny thing. The hardcore fans want everyone else to be hardcore, and if you show any sign of losing faith or interest, you’ll get chastised for being a “fake fan.” In fact, there are plenty of things that cause the hardcore group to scream “FAKE FAN!” The overwhelming belief is that you have to stick with your team through thick and thin.
The thing is though, I don’t blame any Senators fan that wants to stop following for a bit or has already stopped following. It’s no longer just passionate fans who are calling the Senators organization a tire fire, writers/reporters like Ken Warren, Wayne Scanlan, Chris Stevenson, James Duthie, and Ray Ferraro are saying it loud and clear: Ottawa is the laughingstock of the league.
And due to that, I can see why fans would want to give up right now, even if it is just until new ownership comes in and things begin to change. It’s not like the Senators are the Toronto Maple Leafs of the early post-lockout era where the only problem is a bad front office that needs to get better at evaluating talent. No, the problems run much deeper than that. There is simply no direction with the organization, and it starts from the top with Eugene Melnyk, a man that has proven to be incredibly cheap over the past decade.
The large majority of fans have little faith that things will improve under Melnyk, and until he is gone and there is a new rink, things will probably be extremely dicey. Most of the people I follow on Twitter are die-hard Senators fans, and even they are finding it impossible to keep interest, and I’m sure viewership for games next year will be way down. And you know what? That’s fine by me, because we deserve better than this, and I can’t exactly say that games will be entertaining next season, especially if Erik Karlsson is gone.
However, I will say this: if you stick with the team through its darkest days, a future Stanley Cup win will be so much sweeter.
Sports teams are going to lose
way more often than they are going to win, and that’s why winning feels so amazing---because it happens so rarely in comparison. You see, everything is relative. Fans who saw the Chicago Cubs win their first World Series in 108 years back in 2016 would have been much more elated than fans who saw the Montreal Canadiens win their fifth Stanley Cup in a row back in 1960.
Why though? Because if you have already experienced winning and
expect that every single year, it slightly loses its meaning. If you have only followed the Senators when they have been good, winning the Cup isn’t that much better in relation to simply being a competitive playoff team. But if you have followed the team through the bad times as well, then winning the Cup is infinitely better, because you remember how bad things were and how far they have come.
It isn’t going to be easy to follow the Senators in the coming years, because it may take a long time for them to get back to relevancy. It might get worse before it gets better. But it’ll get better at some point, and I will be even more appreciative when that time comes, because what is going on right now is absolute garbage.
Obviously at the end of the day, it’s hard to blame anyone that gives up (or takes a break) right now, and I won’t be calling anybody a “fake fan.” It’s hard to think of a team that has been in this bad of a situation recently, and maybe the Atlanta Thrashers are the closest comparison. I don’t think the team is going to be moved, but everything else is almost as bad. With an organization in such dire straits, why should fans give this team money and attention anyways?
I can definitely see that point of view, and it makes sense. But if you still want to follow this team when they become good again, I’d say to stick with them in the tough times, just because eventual victory is going to be magical. You don’t have to like what is going on or support Melnyk, but follow along if you can.
I can’t promise a future Stanley Cup, but I
can promise a feeling of pure joy if you stick with them and Ottawa does win.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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