Ottawa Senators Fans Are Good Buddhists

Buddhists in our nation's capital. via.

According to Buddhist teachings, life becomes so much more rewarding—or at least that you can end your existential suffering—when you abandon expectations. Letting go of expectations frees you, in some ways, from the struggle and disappointments in mortal life. Buddhism allows you to find a greater zen-like richness in the world around you.

I’m not a Buddhist, because I’m an Angry Hockey Nerd. But as a belief system, it is a virtuous, albeit difficult path that I was reminded of during game four of the Eastern Conference Semifinal series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottawa Senators. The Penguins outclassed the Senators rather thoroughly in their five game playoff series and were at their most dominant in the third period of that fourth game. It was in that period when, up only a couple of goals, the Penguins scored three times in under two minutes: once on the power-play, once short-handed and once at even-strength.

It was a complete mauling, an evisceration. The only person who did worse last week was Rob Ford, or maybe Mike Duffy (ironically another Ottawa Senator… hiyooo!).

As about a third of the Senators fans in attendance streamed out of the stadium—which I’d usually make fun of fair weather hockey fans for doing, but won’t in this case because Scotiabank Place is in the middle of a fucking cornfield in the middle of goddamn nowhere and I hate it here Kanata, and the traffic heading out to games is just murder—those who remained did something startling. With thirty seconds left in the game and with the road team up by four goals, the Senators faithful who had fought the urge to beat traffic stood up and applauded.

They were applauding, I assume, for Daniel Alfredsson. The undersized, candid captain has basically defined the Senators franchise for most of their disappointing existence. At the age of forty and with four sons back at home, it’s far from certain that he’ll ever play another NHL season.

With their team facing elimination in the next game, and looking pretty much dead in the water (as even Alfredsson admitted to reporters post game), perhaps Senators fans sensed that the end was near and wanted to send their hero off in style. Or perhaps they were applauding for an overachieving club that had hung around all season despite a myriad of debilitating injuries.

Whatever the reason, if you’re giving the team you root for a standing ovation with thirty seconds left on the clock in a blowout playoff loss, you’ve obviously achieved the sort of deeper mindfulness that only comes from meditation and a relentless pursuit of the Four Nobles Truths. Judged against the way Canucks fans have handled four goal playoff losses in the recent past, Senators fans have achieved nirvana.

The process by which a fanbase becomes so evenhanded and sensible is a long one, and also the result of some structural correlation of factors so remarkable as to be impossible to reproduce elsewhere. The Senators were an expansion team just over two decades ago, and as all expansion teams are liable to do, they sucked for a long time.

Sandwiched between two historic teams (the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs) and two major media markets, the Senators struggled to win true converts. Hockey fans and bureaucrats went to games, but really it’s the folks who are only now in their mid-twenties and grew up rooting for the team that are the first real wave of Senators fans. Perhaps their outlook is intertwined with the wholesome immaturity of the fanbase as a whole…

But there are other contributing factors, surely. Like how the club is named for a feeble, corrupt Canadian political institution that everyone sensible agrees should be abolished.

Or how, early on in their existence, the Senators were suspected of legitimately throwing games—or as it’s referred to in the more respectable circles where euphemisms are always in vogue: “tanking”—so as to select highly touted prospect Alexandre Daigle in the 1993 NHL draft. Thereafter the NHL installed a “draft lottery,” and continued to structurally reward failure.

So the folks in Ottawa got all excited about the Daigle/Yashin era, which ultimately was stillborn. Daigle didn’t work out, but at least the Senators hit it out of the park with their other first overall picks that decade in Bryan Berard and Chris Phillips!

It took nine years before the true architect of the Ottawa Senators, a man named Mike Milbury, facilitated the emergence of a juggernaut by trading Zdeno Chara and Jason Spezza for Alexei Yashin. It was probably the single worst trade in recent memory, and for much of the next decade the Senators were an excellent club with a fatal flaw.

That fatal flaw was Gary Roberts, but “goaltending” is also an acceptable answer.

Since the Senators lost in the 2007 Stanley Cup Final, a final they were never going to win anyway (something that became crystal fucking clear when Chris Phillips scored in his own net), the team has had a bumpy road. Sniper Dany Heatley demanded out of Ottawa (which was secretly a blessing since his performance was about to fall off a cliff), and the team went into rebuilding mode.

Which sort of takes us to the last couple of seasons where the Senators have overachieved under the stewardship of Bryan Murray (one of the best General Managers in hockey) and Paul MacLean (one of the best, and funniest looking coaches in hockey).

There’s now a generation of legitimate Ottawa Senators fans, folks who grew up actually rooting for the team and not heretically converting from the Habs or the Leafs due to proximity. These fans have an exciting, up and coming team to root for, a team that I truly think is closer to winning a Stanley Cup than any other Canadian franchise.

Somehow Senators fans were able to defy convention and keep all of that in perspective in the midst of an embarrassing playoff loss. They were mindful of the fact that thanking Alfie for all he’s done in the Nation’s Capital was more important than any one-playoff loss.

The standing ovation the hollowed out Scotiabank Place crowd gave the Senators in the waning seconds of game four was actually rather impressive. Or, at least, it would’ve been if it weren’t so fucking pathetic.

Follow the Angry Hockey Nerd on Twitter: @ThomasDrance

Previously:

2013 Jerk Puck All Stars

Why Was the Media so Excited to Falsely Out a Montreal Canadien?

The Edmonton Oilers are a Useless Franchise