- You’ve watched the Ottawa Senators playing in the tiny Civic Centre which is located underneath a football field.
- You remember the 70 losses the team suffered in their inaugural season.
- You thought that picking Alexander Daigle was a phenomenal pick at the time.
- You remember Alexi Yashin donating $1 million to the National Arts Centre and de-donating $1 million from the National Arts Centre.
- You’re Gord Wilson.
- You remember the awesome dual of Damian Rhodes and Ron Tugnutt in goal.
Damian (left) dealing with some sexual harassment and Ron Tugnutt (right) pretending to catch a puck.
- You read the Ottawa Sun on a regular basis and believe what is being printed.
- You listen to the TEAM 1200 on a regular basis and believe what is being broadcasted.
- You remember a time when Patrick Lalime was a legitimate number one goaltender.
- You remember Wade Redden being a decent offensive defenseman.
- You observed Hossa, Chara, Havlat, Redden, Alfredsson, and Spezza all playing on the Sens at the same time.
- You remember how good the Battle of Ontario used to be.
- You know who Laurie Boshman is/was.
- You remember Jani Hurme fighting Felix Potvin.
Jani pummeling Felix "The Cat" Potvin. It also appears Jani broke his neck.
- You remember Patrick Lalime fighting Robert Eshe and Brian Dafoe.
- You remember Bryan Murray almost fighting Lindy Ruff.
- You remember Anton Volchenkov trying to fight Mario Lemieux.
- You remember Peter Bondra in a Sens uniform.
Bondra, in a Sens uniform.- You’ve hugged Sparta Cat.
- You’ve adapted to all three names of the Sens current arena; The Palladium, The Corel Centre, and Scotiabank Place.
- You know who Rod Bryden is.
- You’ve wanted to beat-up Darcy Tucker.
- You knew Mats Sundin was a useless, bald, goof before he played for the Canucks.
- You know that Radek Bonk was taken 3rd overall in 1994, while Daniel Alfredsson was taken 133rd overall in the same draft.
- You went to Elgin Street during the Senators Cup run in 2006.
- You backed up John Mucklar’s decision to keep Redden and part ways with Chara then quickly regretted it, deeply.
- You thought Ray Emery was the coolest man alive, with his cars, suits, tattoos, and temper.
Ray acting cool, notice the backward cap, multiple necklaces, slight facial hair, scissors gesture, and the famous rapper on his right.
- You are a member of the Sens Army.
- You know what the Sens Mile is/was.
- You remember letting Pavel Demitra go for nothing.
- You remember the one season that Bill Muckult played for the Sens and did not score a single goal.
- You know the real reason to why Mike Comrie was re-acquired, Hillary Duff.
A photograph of Hillary Duff, without Mike Comrie.
- You feel you have a personal connection to Carrie Underwood because she is dating Mike Fisher.
A photograph of Carrie Underwood, without Mike Fisher
- You wet your pants when Jason Spezza undressed Sheldon Souray and scored on Jose Theodore in OT at the Corel Centre. (A true, true fan was actually in the building)
- You were pumped when Dominick Hasek became an Ottawa Senator.
- You remember Daniel Alfredsson’s thread locks, which made him look like Chad Kroeger from Nickelback.
Daniel and Chad trying to look like each other. Maybe they are the same person...who knows.
- You wanted to kiss Steve Duchesne when he scored to put the Senators in the playoffs for the very first time.
- You’ve wanted to slap Wade Redden.
- You miss Todd White.
- You’ve gone golfing earlier than expected most playoffs.
If you fit into 90% of these points, you are most likely a dedicated Sens fan. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? We will leave that up for debate. NHLEF OUT!
k, mox, anybody growing up in the ottawa area remember all of this. as ottawa is a horrible sports town, every other team in the area got ignored and it was 100% senators, so ignoring them was nearly impossible. personally i hate the sens for this reason. and by the way, i caught that part about the ottawa sun and the team 1200. i think thats a slam at me but nice try. so in conclusion,just because we know the knowledge of the sens doen't mean we are sens fans. change the title of ur blog to- do you follow hockey and live in the ottawa area?
ReplyDeleteP.S. u forgot one main point in this article: still zero stanley cups. and the ones from 1910 don't count so don't give me that shit. how bout writing a blog on a team that has more history then daniel alfredsons hair. is that how bad this team is, this makes one of the franchises highlights? also, i think it is time to give up on the jason spezza goal. k, one goal for fuck sakes.what about the amazing drop passes to the oposing team that end up behing ray emery, hasek, gerber or any other sens goalie that gets thrown out of town. never here that mentioned either. marik malik had an outstanding shootout goal and u don't here anybody going on about that still. its been 3 years now, its over mox. i could go on, but i'm sick of hearing about how good this team is, and they haven't prooved fuck all in their amazing 15 year run.
i think you know who wrote this
go habs go
We here at the NHL-EF appreciate your comments on our articles to the fullest, but feel we should point out some serious flaws in your response to this article in particular. We were not going to respond to this comment in great deal, until the “go habs go” comment appeared, which made pointing out your errors easy when comparing the Canadians to the Senators.
ReplyDeleteFirst, allow me to examine your errors with some of the points you made regarding the article in general. Here at the NHL-EF, we will never reveal our true allegiances to any particular NHL team. It would create bias and conflicts of interests when writing our articles. We simply write about what we think is clever and what we feel others should know. I felt the article was poking fun at the Ottawa Senators franchise more than discussing the teams successes and never did the post state “how good this team is,” but there were some points regarding to memorable plays and moments, which every single NHL franchise has. I believe the last point referred to the underachieving in the playoffs most years, maybe you missed that.
To make it clear, the thesis of this article was the traits you may have if you were indeed a Senators fan, not how successful or unsuccessful this team has been, we thought it was painfully clear. The point about the local Ottawa media was not a direct hit at any of our readers, it was merely an observation that a large majority of Senators fans get their NHL news from these sources, unfortunately, and makes them feel that the Sens are larger than the Leafs, Habs, Wings, Rangers, Blackhawks, and Bruins combined. The fact that people who do not route for the Sens, read and listen to this media is absurd. Of course you are going to feel angry and feel like its Sens 100% of the time. Not only is this annoying, but the quality of the journalism of these media outlets is a joke. Both have a collection of university drop-outs who went to college and think they received a legitimate journalism degree. Anyone can make up a bogus rumor and print or broadcast it. Also, these outlets are so poor they can’t report on anything other than the Sens because they do not have the money to travel to get other sporting news stories and they also don’t know how to use the internet. You would be much better off reading the Ottawa Citizen, National Post, or Globe and Mail, depending on your political view point, if you want unbiased, legitimate journalism on sports.
Now, let’s move onto the issue you so elegantly put forward. You can’t expect to slash out at a team, and then express your allegiances to another team, and not see a rebuttal in return, right? So let us begin. Your early point about Ottawa being a horrible sports town and other teams being ignored is a valid argument. However, Montreal is just about the same in terms of running teams out of town, if not worse. Ottawa had and lost their CFL franchises the Roughriders and Renegades, which is unfortunate, but nowadays the CFL is not nearly as popular as it once was when the city had a team, it’s not a gigantic loss. Montreal on the other hand, had a MLB franchise, the Expos, who got run out of town, faster than a Randy Johnson fast ball. And guess where the mascot of the Expos went to? No, not to Washington with the rest of the team, he went to the Bell Center and became a part of the Habs family. Sounds a little monopolistic to me. Personally, I feel it is far worse to loose a MLB franchise rather than a CFL franchise, with the MLB being by far the more popular league nationally and internationally. So don’t tell me that Montreal is not as bad a sports town as Ottawa, in terms of supporting only one team. In Montreal, it’s 100% Canadians. Sure, Montreal has CFL team still but their cities population is 1,620,693, while Ottawa’s population is 812,129, so they have a much easier time supporting a second sports team. Even though the CFL these days really doesn’t count as a professional sports league. Ottawa also has one of the smallest populations for a city with a NHL team, and still manages to sell out games on a consistent basis, just to put that out there. Unlike other NHL franchises with populations over 1.5 million.
ReplyDeleteMoving on to the statement about Stanley Cups and not proving anything over 15 years (which is actually 17 years, by the way, 16 minus the lockout). Allow me to examine this issue further. I will show you how the Ottawa franchise has indeed proved something over the past 17 (16 minus lockout) years. That something being, a much more superior team to that of the Montreal Canadians. Since you went out on a limb and stole 11 Stanley Cups from the Senators, I am going to steal only one from the Canadians which was won in 1993, the Senators inaugural season. I think you will agree that comparing a well-established team to an expansion team in its first year is an unfair comparison, so the comparison of the two teams will start from the 1993/1994 season on. I can’t see anyone arguing this since the Senators squad finished last that season and dead last in the next two campaigns as well, if you do find that hard to swallow, that’s just sad. Also, you said “the last 15 years” so it’s your own fault. The team still has 23 Cups and a head start, but the Senators still prove to be the better team.
Over the last 15 years, beginning from the 1993/1994 campaign, the Ottawa Senators edge out the Montreal Canadians in wins by a 592-541 margin. The Senators are the better offensive team, outscoring the Canadians by 3533-3363. The Canadians do have fewer goals against than the Senators at 3370-3386, but these stats are skewed somewhat, considering the Senators allowed a whopping 397 goals against in 1993/1994, while the most goals the Canadians allowed in a season was 265.
ReplyDeleteThe Ottawa franchise has won the Northeast Division four times in 1998/1999, 2000/2001, 2002/2003, and 2005/2006. They won the Presidents Trophy in 2002/2003 as the leagues best team in the regular season. The team won the Prince of Whales Trophy in 2006/2007 as Eastern Conference Champions. Longtime coach Jacques Martin won the Jack Adams Award in 1998/1999 for coach of the year. Daniel Alfredsson was the Calder Trophy winner for rookie of the year in 1995/1996. Wade Redden also won the +/- award in 2005/2006.
The Montreal franchise since 1993/1994 has not had the same honors awarded to them, the have only won the Northeast Division once in 2007/2008, probably because Ottawa was too busy winning it most of the time. They have not won a Presidents Trophy. They have not won an Eastern Conference championship since their cup win in 1992/1993. Jose Theodore did win the Vezina and Heart Trophy in 2002, two awards no Senator has ever won, but seeing where Jose is today, do Jose’s awards really have a great deal of legitimacy?
The Senators have made the Conference final twice, winning it once, in the 15 year span, while the Canadians have never made it past the Conference Semi-Final. The Canadians have made the playoffs 9 times while the Senators have made the cut 11 times, all of which were done in consecutive years.
Since 1993/1994, the Senators have continued to produce NHL superstar caliber players up front. Alfredsson, Spezza, Hossa, Havlat, and Yashin to some extent, have all had terrific campaigns as Senators and are some of the top earning players in the game. The Canadians list is not nearly as impressive, especially in the forward positions, with the likes of Koivu, Rebiero, and Damphousse.
In addition, it is truly ironic that a Montreal Canadians fan would tell people to forget about the Jason Spezza goal which made the entire Canadian team on the ice look like a bunch of fools. I am truly sorry that there hasn’t been a Habs goal that was scored in overtime, in the last 15 years, worthy of play of the year. Additionally, the Marik Malik goal is still alive and well. How many times have you been playing pond hockey or road hockey and you’ve imitated the Marik Malik goal and casual celebration? A lot. Actually, a whole lot more than the Jason Spezza goal even. However, I will concede that Spezza does cough up the puck on a consistent basis, which does cost his team a lot of the time. Nevertheless, some of the bonehead moves he pulls do work and result in very impressive goals.
So there you have it, my Hab loving friend, the evidence that the Ottawa Senators have proved something over the time they have been in the league, that being a more successful franchise than the prestigious Montreal Canadians. And I assume that when you say “write a blog about another team with more history” you are referring to the Canadians once again. However, the Canadians have been the focal point of several blogs here at the NHL-EF ie. Bob Gainey and Corruption and Potential Habs Owners.
ReplyDeleteThis is how you make a well constructed argument, stats, examples, and a flow, not random words thrown together like your argument. Your P.S was longer than the actual comment, which just isn’t right. The NHL-EF staff would appreciate more well-constructed writing, correct grammar, and spelling, when posting responses. In addition, more stats and evidence are encouraged to back up claims made, rather than using profanity and the lashing out at NHL-EF staff and NHL players. NHLEF OUT…AGAIN!
k, first of all, not everybody has time to research 5 hours about pointless stats to rebutal. i find it funny how you are begging for people to comment, and yet ur asking people not to write in unless they use a dictionary first apparently. so no more comments from me i guess after this one. k, im not arguing that the sens vs canadiens point. there is more then 2 teams in the nhl. but since ur first season compared to other teams they havent done much. detroit has won the cup 4 times i believe. avs have won it twice. devils numerous times. the penguins have went from being a basement team to stanley cup champion in a span of 4 years. where were the sens during this? not drafting good players apparently. and when i said write about a team with history,i didnt mean just the habs what about the edmonton oilers? the wayne greztky years aren't worth writing about? the 72 summit seriers? the great players of the past, bobby orr?no? maurice richard? beliveau?bobby hull? no that stupid to write about i guess. just saying try looking back more then 17 years and you may find some very interesting material to write about, cause lets be honest the current nhl, has pretty much had its limit. how much more can we talk about sidney crosby vs. alex ovechkin? or potential trade rumours that never happen, or carrie underwood dating mike fisher? there is no more you can talk about. wait, lets talk about the pontential dany heatly trade rumours. haven't heard one of those for atleast 3 hours. also, just with the better sports town, montreal was good enough to get a mlb team in the first place so that a plus i believe. i also think that the ottawa region had a minor league team called the lynx and they couldn't even get 2000 fans out to support them of a region close to a million. same goes with the rougriders(who by the way can't even invent their own team name). 15000 fans couldn't come out unless they are winning. i think hamilton is smaller then ottawa and they seem to fill the stadium everygame and they have been brutal in the last 5 years. same goes with winnipeg. looks bad when the capital city of canada doesnt have a Canadian football team. but thats a different story for a different day. and the jose theodore stat is pointless. u could say that about a lot of past winners of awards. dominik hasek has won it a lot and couldn't even crack an nhl squad in his later years. i think a lot of the winners are dead for that matter. what kind of competiter are they? losers. so ya he had good years and now he is on the decline like every other player will do. pointless arguement.
ReplyDeletealso i have just noticed that the topic of this blog was "are you an ottawa senator fan", so i now relize how off topic we are, so enough writing for me. for good maybe.
maybe for the last time,
burgess
Personally, I always found an uncanny similarity between the looks of Brad Jones and Daniel Alfredsson. And I must admit that these heated debates between you two are quite enjoyable to read. Hopefully I'll be around to witness some of these in person soon.
ReplyDeleteHAHA Ya!! Brad totally resembles Daniel Alfredsson. But I have seen Brad play hockey, he's not nearly as smooth on the ice as his twin.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your enthusiastic response to our response, the NHL-EF loves a good debate. However, yet again, there are some serious flaws in your rebuttal. You contradicted yourself several times with some points and numerous points do not seem logical. However, I do agree that we should maybe write about some of the classic moments in the NHL, because there are some good tales, but we are trying to attract people who may not know the entire history of the NHL and are just recent NHL fans. So those stories may have to wait.
ReplyDeleteAs for your writing style, we do not expect writing the same quality as you read here on the NHL-EF in your responses, but we do appreciate a capital letter at the beginning of sentences and names and no text-messaging short forms like “ur,” “k,” etc. It makes you look a lot more legitimate and not look like an Ottawa Sun reporter.
Indeed, there are more than two teams in the league, but it’s extremely difficult to have a debate which includes all 30 teams, because no one wants to talk about the Nashville Predators. The reason I chose to pick the two teams I picked was because you trashed the Senators team and then you went and showed your Hab pride, so it was inevitable.
I also realize all of those teams you listed have had more success than the Senators (and Canadians) in the same time span, but you cannot sit there and say “where were the Sens during this,” because the Senators were always seen as a threat, finishing at the top of the league in the regular season on a consistent basis. Did they end up knocking those teams off? No, but they where always “there.” And your comment about not drafting good players amuses me, since a team that can make the playoffs 11 consecutive years must be doing something right at these drafts. I won’t go over the list again.
You said you weren’t talking about the Canadians when you said “write about a team with more history,” and you listed the oilers, the ’72 team, etc. You mentioned we should talk about some of the great players, like Gretzky, Hull, etc. And I was with you, but then you go and list two Montreal Canadian players, completely contradicting yourself, when you claimed you were not talking about the Canadians. This makes the statement extremely silly.
You stated Montreal was good enough to get a MLB franchise, and that maybe, but you can say Ottawa was “good” enough to get a CFL franchise and a Minor League Baseball franchise, so I don’t see your point.
You listed off some of the cities with CFL franchises which have smaller populations than Ottawa and the success those teams have had, attendance wise, but you missed one major point to all of those cities, none of them have a NHL team to go and see live, let alone any other sporting event. So yet again, I don’t see your point here.
Finally, you say the Theodore argument is pointless, and that maybe the case, even though it wasn’t an argument, just a statement. However, you went on to say that Dominick Hasek could be put in the same boat, because he also sucks now. This comparison makes absolutely no sense. The year after Jose won both the Heart and the Vezina, he lost the starting job in Montreal and got traded. Hasek on the other hand, after winning his first set of Heart and Vezina trophies, won the Vezina trophy the next five years and the Heart trophy here and there. I am pretty sure he deserved those awards. Of course Hasek sucks now, the guy is like 43. He can’t make a save with his left testicle like he used to. Jose on the other hand is still at a “prime” age and can hardly get any respect from anyone. You contradicted yourself by saying; my argument was pointless, with backing up your argument, with an even more pointless argument. You should have chosen Jim Carrey (not the actor) as an example to express your point, not one of the greatest goaltenders to have ever played the game. But I am not going to sit here and spoon feed you items to back up your argument.
Do you have to be smooth when you're rocking the vintage 70's body suit of a jersey?
ReplyDeletek mox, i'll try to make this short, but it probably won't be. first of all. i run equipment for a living, i don't write essays, so my care for my writing isn't as much as it was when it was in high school. i apologize for any blog viewers you may have lost because of my uneducated writing aparently. i also must say, im getting tired of the sun vs citizen debate. i have a conclusion. the sun is targeted at blue collar workers such as myself, and the citizen is targeted at white collar worgers such as you. the sun is not as serious of a paper, for non serious readers, like me, where the citizen is a serious paper. i'm not going to take a hernia if the writer uses the wrong "there" in one of his articles, as you would. i read the material in the article and judge whether it was worth reading or not. you seem to judge it on the writers grammer. also the sun has the sunshine girl which is a great feature. by the way, you didn't bitch the guy out that used the :) face thing. i don't think that would be acceptable in a proper newspaper, like this one wants to be apparently.
ReplyDeleteand im sorry that i included two of the best players ever to play the game in a list of players you should talk about. i know i said talk about other teams than those two, but lets be honest mox, its hard not to talk about them when you look back over the history of the nhl. if they weren't winning the cup, they were losing in the final, for the most part. its like the yankees in baseball. a team with that much history can not be ignored when talking about history of the league. you should look past the " i hate the canadiens, so i will never say anything good about them". is henri richards 11 cups not worth talking about? what about ken drydens 6 championships in his short 9 year career? you can't ignore this stuff. i believe you guys are called the "EDUCATION" foundation, so try teaching the fans about the history of the nhl, instead of the current nhl news that everyone hears everyday on sportscentre. get people to watch the old games as they were so much better. actualy, better then that, why don't you watch the old games? you may see what the real game of hockey was. the players actually cared for the game. it was like watching olympic hockey every game. that passion is gone in the new nhl.
as for ur theodore statement, i have a few things to say. 1. every player in the nhl isn't going to have an outstanding career. such as theodore where he had 2 or 3 good seasons and is now an average goalie.jonathan cheechoo won the maurice rocket richard trophy (i think he was a great montreal Canadiens player, but not quite sure), only to score 29 points last season. what happened there? should he be banned from the nhl aswell? if you think every player in the league is going to put up record breaking numbers on a consitant basis, ur dreaming. you would never have to draft players if that were the case.
2. theodore is still managing to crack an nhl team making him atleast one of the top 60 goalies in the world which isn't a bad accomplishment if you ask me. sure he isn't as good as he used to be, but that happens to all players as i already said.
and finally u can't sit there and tell me ottawa isn't a bad sports town. montreal still has a cfl team where ottawa does not. that is my point, they were good enough fans to keep their team around. and the mlb frachise is hard to keep in canada. no intrest + rediulous contracts in baseball are not a good combination. that why the expos are gone. the vancouver grizzleys are gone as well. its hard to keep a canadian based team in an american based league, unless u have the fans to back them, such as the nhl. canada loves hockey. not baseball or basketball. thats why we still have the 6 nhl cities. and one baseball and basketball team. but the cfl doesn't have to worry about the usa based league, as its the CANADIAN football league. no american city wants one. baltimore tried and failed badly. and also, about half the cfl season is played in the nhl offseason, so it can't take fans away. and of a city of nearly 1 million, they can't get 20000 to watch the sens and 15000 to watch the roughriders? pretty pathetic.if this still doesn't convince you, edmonton and calgary seem to have both nhl and cfl franchises and both are fairly successful. i also believe that these two cities and ottawa are very similar in size.
ReplyDeleteand i must conclude that all of your " i don't see ur point here" statements tells me one thing. this makes you a hypocrite. you say you appreciate everybody's opionion and comments, well that is not the case apparently, because you do nothing but bash anybody who even slightly argues with you. a person who accepts all comments would take thier view and perhaps build on there opinion, not burn the idea immidiatly. i on the most part will accept other people opinions, excpet when matthew moxley starts with his rediculous sens glasses views.
Few things, and then we will call it a day:
ReplyDelete- Yes, we do accept everyone’s opinions and comments, but we do not necessarily agree with any of them. However, this does not make us a hypocrite. If we said; we accept everyone’s opinions and comments and will agree 100% with them, and then we go on ranting about how wrong they are, then we would fall into the hypocrite category. Additionally, you make it seem that we cannot say anything conflicting to your point of view. Why can’t we defend ourselves (or a team) after you critique our articles and bash a hockey franchise? It only seems fair.
- You say I am looking through the “Sens glasses”…but you are clearly looking through the “Canadians glasses” that makes you sound an awful like a…the name mentioned above.
- That is why the Citizen is better. And we “white collar” folks also take glances at an article and decide whether it’s worth reading or not in the same way you do, we just go through a lot more variety of articles.
- Finally, I would like to congratulate you on picking some examples which make your argument stronger, the second time around. I guess it takes some practice. As mentioned, I am not going to spoon feed you arguments. If you chose those examples before (ie. Cheechoo, CFL in Edmonton and Calgary), I would not have been able to go to school on you as I did, if you brought those up the first time.
Gosh! Look at all the comments! My computer monitor is getting dirty from all the mud-slinging (and no Burgess, that isn't a shot at you because you love cows, and no, Mox that isn't a shot at you because you only recently found out what toilet paper was).
ReplyDeleteNothing like a little debate to get things moving, I like it.
Also, Luke, you're right, Brad doesn't need Alfie's skills when he's sporting a jersey that sexy. I may ask to see the Jersey and copy it as the new NHL-EF logo, which we will be announcing before the end of August. Stay tuned!
no comment
ReplyDeleteburgess