I'm writing this short post in
response to an article by Sean McIndoe (a.k.a. Down Goes Brown), which offers
an awesome overview of the Battle of Ontario. If you haven't already, I highly
recommend that you give it a read regardless of which Ontario team you back. He
also discusses the emerging Habs-Sens rivalry. (Check it out by clicking here.)
With Sens fans in celebratory
mode right now, I thought I'd share my own take on the Battle of Ontario in
hopes that some criticism mixed with praise for Ottawa's team will be received
well after their undeniably hard-fought and well-deserved victory over Montreal.
When I moved to Ottawa with my
partner years ago, we wanted to support the Sens while remaining Leafs fans. We
figured that we could root for the Sens except when they played the Leafs (76
out of 82 games in the season ain't bad). Since the Leafs had been sucking for
quite a while at this point with little reason to think they'd turn it around
suddenly, there probably wasn't going to be another Leafs-Sens match-up in the
playoffs while we were there.
Our plans to support the Sens,
however, were spoiled by the Ottawa fanbase's general hatred of the Leafs. For
example, we once saw the Sens play the Flyers in April. By this point we had
become accustomed to hearing the "Leafs suck" chant in every game
(even when the Leafs weren't playing) and seeing signs and jerseys (the old
"losers since 67" ones) that mocked Toronto.
The thing that finally broke the
back of our efforts to support both teams came when the crowd cheered on the
scoreboard when it showed that another team in the Eastern Conference had just
won a game (mind you, not against the Leafs who weren't playing on that night)
that would mathematically eliminate the Leafs from the postseason. Furious
cheers followed the screen shot as fans (without being reminded of the
standings) knew what that game's outcome meant. So the fans had committed that
game to memory just to celebrate the Leafs' playoff hopes being crushed.
Also, when fans noticed that we
were distraught by their schadenfreude, they hurled popcorn and derogatory
insults at us.
It's not that we started to hate
the Sens from that point on, but we couldn't reconcile cheering for a team that
took such joy in the Leafs' misery.
That said, I think I can
understand where the franchise and its fans are coming from. As supporters of
the second newest Canadian NHL franchise, Sens fans probably feel the need to
differentiate themselves aggressively from other teams in order to assert the
autonomy and distinct identity of theirs. In some ways it's probably necessary
to take a hostile stance toward other fans in order to shore up and then expand
the Senators' fanbase. Indeed, it’s politically astute as I’ll describe below
in reference to Machiavelli.
Unlike the Jets, the Sens don't
enjoy the geographical isolation that grants Canada's newest team a built-in
fanbase. Winnipeg doesn't have any rival Canadian markets nearby whereas the
Sens have the unenviable lot of being wedged between the Original Six's two greatest
teams in terms of popularity and past success. (While the Leafs' 0 cups since
1967 is sad, let's not forget that the Habs' cup drought just hit the 20-year
mark.)
In The Prince,
Machiavelli wrote that a new ruler has to take an antagonistic position against
its more powerful neighbours until he or she has consolidated power or else his
or her territory will be subsumed into that greater state’s sphere of
influence. Fighting a two-front war against larger and more profitable
fanbases, it's understandable that Sens fans militantly defend and aggressively
try to expand their fanbase by encouraging new residents of Ottawa to
assimilate themselves into acolytes of the city’s athletes.
At some point, however, I think
that the fans will see that no one seriously questions the viability or
integrity of their team (if outsiders ever really did do so before). The Sens
can then scale back hostilities with other teams with the knowledge that they’d
like but they don't need to take in another team's fans in order to sustain
their franchise. Sure, there will still be rivalries when teams meet, but Sens
fans may see that they don't need to make hatred of another team central to
their own identity.
Personally, I'm hoping that last
night's series-clinching rout of the Habs in their own building offers Sens
fans assurance that they are a team in their own right, and so they can
tolerate other fans in living in Ottawa--while, of course, giving them some
sporting jibes for their poor life choices.
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