David Kirouac-Imagn Images
Ever since Michael Andlauer became the new owner of the Ottawa Senators in 2023, he’s been very transparent about his desire to expand the team’s reach beyond the Ontario border into Quebec.
For some Sens fans, however, putting a hybrid Quebec Nordiques-Ottawa Senators split jersey on mascot Spartacat is probably a step too far. The team deleted a post to X featuring that image.
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The controversial post followed the team’s announcement Monday that it will play two pre-season games ahead of the 2025-26 NHL season at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City.
The games are scheduled for Sept. 28 and 30 against the New Jersey Devils and Montreal Canadiens, respectively.
The announcement is the latest in a series of actions Andlauer has taken to improve the team’s francophone reach.
The subject became a priority for Andlauer upon taking over, as he spearheaded the creation of a community cabinet in 2024 to ensure “strong engagement with both French and English Canadians and importantly the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation whose Traditional Territory hosts the Senators’ operations.”
The diversity of Ottawa’s bilingual market was a key consideration in the decision to hire Sylvain St-Laurent last summer as the team’s director of communications, who is well-suited to help expand the Senators’ Francophone base. GM Steve Staios has also consistently emphasized the importance of the Quebec market to the franchise’s success.
Senators president Cyril Leeder continued that tune today. He explained that the Nordiques-Senators jersey was only an attempt to grow the team’s fan base in its second-most popular television market, following the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
“We’re just trying to have a small nod to the Nordiques fans,” Leeder told TSN 1200 Monday afternoon. “Those are the fans we’re most likely to convert to Senators fans, are people that have cheered for the Nordiques in the past.
“If we had a do-over on that one, would we do that one differently? We probably would.”
Sens Fans. For clarity
1. The team is not moving. Period. (other than hopefully downtown)
2. Putting our beloved Sparty in a Sens/Nords jersey was wrong. Today was a good reminder that our logo is sacred. As CEO, I own this oneNow, hopefully we can all focus on WASH #GSG
— Cyril Leeder (@cyleeder) January 28, 2025
Innocent enough, but Andlauer also said at a press conference he would be open to his team playing regular-season games in Quebec City. That threw the Ottawa fan base into a mini-panic on social media.
This is what’s so frustrating. A completely unforced error took away the real story: the #Sens are in a divisional spot 50 games into the season for the FIRST TIME since the year we went to the conference finals. That should’ve been the story of the week. Not this. https://t.co/ttuAwQk6EC
— SENS TALK (@senstalk_) January 27, 2025
“We’ll start with the two pre-season games, and we’ll go from there,” Andlauer said. “For me, that’s the vision. It’s to make our mark in Quebec and in a francophone market. If we can play in Sweden, we can play in Quebec.”
The NHL has steered clear of any intentions to bring a franchise back to Quebec City. But the Senators faithful can be forgiven for being extra sensitive to the idea of their franchise playing regular-season games outside of Ottawa. Former owner Eugene Melnyk, who died in 2022 at the age of 62, bought the team out of bankruptcy in 2003, saying at the time he wanted to buy the Senators to ensure they remained in Canada after the Nordiques moved to Colorado. In 2017, one day before hosting the Canadiens in an outdoor game, he said the team was fighting to sell tickets.
“If it doesn’t look good here, it could look very, very nice somewhere else, but I’m not suggesting that right now,” Melnyk said in 2017.
I prefer when the Ottawa Senators play home games in Ottawa.
This fan base has been through too many threats of losing our team to be openly advocating to play regular season games in a market that is trying to get an NHL team.
World economy shows a US team will not be moving…
— Locked On Senators (@SensCentral) January 27, 2025
However, Leeder told TSN 1200 that Andlauer is fully committed to Ottawa. Andlauer also said the same at the press conference.
Leeder also said his observation of the reactions to Monday’s announcement.
“The reaction on Twitter has been a bit of both, positive and negative,” he said. “Facebook has been very positive.
If you’re reading the French media today, I think our mission was accomplished.”
This comes after a separate announcement last week from the National Capital Commission (NCC) that it aims to finalize an arena deal with the Senators by the end of 2025, which is a more sedated timeline than many were hoping for.
Leeder said that as much as the Senators wish they could “put shovels in the ground tomorrow,” the project, which he estimated at over $1 billion, will proceed carefully in partnership with the NCC.
“Michael made it really clear that this is not about moving to Quebec City – it’s not a tactic here to get the NCC to move,” Leeder said. “These games were in the works for a while.”
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