To Boo or Not to Boo: The Question for Senators Fans Ahead of DeBrincat's Return

Is booing former players the consequence of leaving a team for another, or is the best revenge winning? Adam Proteau tackles the question ahead of Alex DeBrincat's return to Ottawa with the Detroit Red Wings.

Hockey fans hang their hearts on their favorite teams and players. When circumstances change, and aspirations aren’t realized, those same fans can lash out passionately at the same players they once cheered.

We saw that tribalism on display in Winnipeg when Pierre-Luc Dubois returned to town and was booed by Jets fans, and we’re likely to see that again Saturday when the Detroit Red Wings travel to Ottawa to take on the Senators. Specifically, Sens fans are probably going to come out and boo the stuffing out of former Senators winger Alex DeBrincat, who found his way to his hometown Red Wings.

We’re never going to tell fans they absolutely shouldn’t cry out against any player who rubs them the wrong way. If they’ve paid for a ticket, they’ve got every right to express themselves reasonably. Perhaps it's no different than booing the captain of a rival club, the player who injured your team's skater or the opposing tough guy. But when you take a closer look at NHLers who orchestrate a move from one franchise to another, you gain an appreciation for the humanity behind such decisions and perhaps think differently.

Some will say elite athletes make a tradeoff when it comes to their workplace and the large amount of money they make. They’ll tell you that once you become a public figure privileged enough to play a game for a living, you surrender many of your personal needs, including your desire to play for any particular franchise. 

We’re not so sure that mentality is fair. We’re not calling for players to pick where they want to play from the moment they're NHL-eligible, but we are saying it should be understandable that certain players want nothing more than to work in an environment that makes them happy. All people in all lines of work want the same thing, so why should NHLers be any different?

To wit: We saw John Tavares dragged over the coals by New York Islanders fans when he left as a UFA and signed with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs. Isles fans felt betrayed by someone they completely supported since the moment he was drafted, and that’s understandable to a degree. But if you’ve ever spoken with Tavares, you’ll know what a solid citizen he is, and you’ll understand why he wanted to go home and become a Leaf. Consequently, Tavares gets relentlessly booed when he plays the Islanders on Long Island, and that will happen as long as he’s an active player, but that’s a factor he accepts as part of his career’s evolution.

Similarly, DeBrincat learned early in his NHL career that he was under the control of his employer and that he had little to no say in his home as a player. After five years of very productive work as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, DeBrincat was dealt to Ottawa in 2022. 

You definitely couldn’t say he underperformed as a Hawk, but because of Chicago’s choice to fully rebuild their roster, DeBrincat became expendable, and he had no leverage to have input in where the Blackhawks traded him. There was no outcry from Hawks fans because the team made the choice to cut ties with him. But if a player tries to make that choice, he’s suddenly the villain? That makes no sense.

DeBrincat and his agent knew that, eventually, he would earn the right to dictate his future, and he went through all the proper channels to ensure he could be an active factor in that process. It wasn’t like he held out and refused to play for Ottawa last year or this season. He did what he was asked to do, and he kept his focus on the time he would gain leverage in his next contract. He was entering restricted free agency this past summer, and he didn’t want to sign a contract extension with the Sens. In essence, he made it clear he wanted a change of employer, and there’s nothing inherently terrible about that. It wasn’t a comment on Ottawa as a city, or the Senators as a team. It was all about realizing a dream to play in his hometown, and that’s a dream you can’t fault anyone for.

When he steps on the Sens’ ice Saturday, DeBrincat is going to hear the jeers, but they’re not going to change him as a player. Senators fans who try to find empathy for him are doing a service to themselves as fans and to DeBrincat as well. Stewing in negative juices is not a productive thing. DeBrincat is happy where he’s at with a Wings team that began the season 3-1-0, and Ottawa has thrived without DeBrincat, generating the same record. Things have worked out for both sides.

Boo if you want to, Sens fans, but the best revenge is winning. Nothing would feel better than the Senators beating the Wings with Vladimir Tarasenko and Dominik Kubalik in the lineup.

If we have a progressive mindset about the realities of pro sports participants, we can accept players earning the choice to perform where they want to. The NHL draft dispersal process will almost certainly continue for the foreseeable future, but players have negotiated the right to, eventually, make their way to a city of their preference.

Asking players to be loyal to one team for their entire career is an extremely big ask, and many players aren’t willing to do that, especially after they see teams break loyalty with certain players they choose to trade with absolutely no input from those players. Thus, when NHLers play by the collective bargaining agreement rules, you can’t fault them for wanting to live among friends and family at home. They’re standing up for themselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The desire to be at home is just human nature, and that’s why players like DeBrincat and Tavares shouldn’t be booed. Fair is fair, and they’ve earned the right to be where they are today.