A day after Team Alfie whalloped Team Phillips led by 4 goals from Alexandre Daigle in the alumni game on Parliament hill and on a day that should be the crowning spectacle for the franchise, the "Donald Trump of the NHL" opened his mouth again and has taken away from that celebration and cast a big cloud over the proceedings.
More on Melnyks comments later, but first I will focus on the first real outdoor game in Senators history. This will be the second stadium game the Senators have played, but you can't really count the Heritage Classic in Vancouver as "outdoors" because the roof on BC Place was closed.
In terms of the game counting or gleaming anything to do with bucking their recent slump or building on the win Wednesday over the Rangers, forget about that.
Enjoy this one as a stand-alone event, one that you hope ends with Bobby Ryan not losing a finger to frostbite. It will be a nippy game, with temperatures expected to approach -20 without the windchill.
Craig Anderson will play for the Senators, who just want to enjoy this one but get through it so they can put all of the distractions of Sweden, the outdoor game and a seven game road trip because of arena unavailability behind them and focus on getting out of the hole they find themselves in.
But, as I mentioned earlier, Eugene Melnyk just doesn't seem to get it.
His comments yesterday were exactly the things that Senators' fans don't want to hear, and it is going to get worse before it gets better, and it could result in the team moving.
Here are a few quotes that caught my ear...
"I'm not going to blow a lifetime of working hard to support a hockey team, it's not going to happen"
"I could do Lebreton (Flats). I don't need partners there. The banks are a big part of anything that you do... The bigger question is whether I am prepared to blow it, all of the money I have made over the years in a different industry in a different country"
"Its a franchise, so imagine you own a McDonald's franchise...but you could move it....but why would you sell it. It is something that is very difficult to buy, and we are doing OK here, not doing great but doing OK. Its just too much fun."
"If it doesn't look good here, it could look very, very nice somewhere else, but I'm not suggesting that right now. All I'm saying is that I would never sell the team"
"Even at $68Million (Payroll) that is too much for the revenue base that we have. If you want to go bankrupt, have the cheapest product and the best product"
The the leader of the country to the south, Melnyk lacks a filter between what comes to his mind and what comes out of his mouth.
I heard about a month ago that the NCC doesn't want to do the LeBreton deal with Melnyk as the owner, and they were trying to force him to sell in order to get the redevelopment proposal to move forward.
What Melnyk doesn't seem to realize, and Sports Administration 101 says that most franchises don't actually make a lot of money, and sports owners are most often in it for ego and status. There is a reason why a pro sports owner pretty much must be a Billionaire before they are even considered to join the fraternity. Less than 1/3 of the NHL franchises made more than $20M last season.
According to Forbes, Ottawa has $10M in operating income, tied for 15th in the league. The problem for Melnyk is, that number comes before taking into account interest, and because Melnyk has so much of the team financed (and continues to do so, with a recent round of refinancing) that probably eats up a majority of any profit, which is not the fault of the fan base or supporters.
Melnyk seems to expect this team to make him a lot of money. Its not going to, plain and simple. The goodwill that was built up from him being the white knight that rode in to rescue the team from bankruptcy in 2003 is long spent, and you have to forgive the fan base for not throwing their full support behind a guy that has a net worth of over $1.2B (Canadian Business Magazine 2017 rankings) crying poor yet again.
He bought the team in 2003 for about $92M (about $125M with the arena included) and the franchise is now valued at $420M by Forbes in their 2017 list.
I think most Senators fans would prefer, and even moreso now that he has once again essentially taken the franchise and the fan base hostage, that he just take his financial gain, sell the franchise and ride off into the sunset on one of his thoroughbreds.
It might be the best situation for the fan base, but if Melnyk thinks that moving the team to another city is the answer, he might be in for a rude awakening. Because although this is a relatively small market, like the Donald, if Melnyk doesn't recognize the villainous part he plays in the process, its not going to be any different there.
And, like Trump is finding out (or at least the rest of America except him and his delusional followers are finding out) you can't run a country the same as a business, and although hockey is a business, pro sports aren't the same as a normal business, except for rule #1 - don't insult your client base. If making money is your main goal, and you aren't prepared to put some (or a lot) of your own money in to make it successful, its not going to work.
Damn, I didn't want to go that deep into finance on a Saturday morning that should have the outdoor game as the focal point, but it is what it is.
I don't see this having a happy ending in Ottawa, and Melnyk doesn't seem to be able to see outside his own bubble to realize that he is as much of the problem as the solution. Remind you of anyone else who is a daily newsmaker?
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And last but not least, Team Canada made its final roster decisions on Friday night, and two Senators prospects will play in Buffalo for Team Canada - 2017 4th round pick Drake Batherson and 2nd round pick Alex Formenton both made the cut.
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