After a Senators playoff song gone wrong, a devoted fan ends up banished to Taiwan.
After a playoff double overtime loss where you hit the post five times, including twice in overtime, you'll do just about anything to change your luck for the better.
The Ottawa Senators had some fun this week with local musician Kyle Ivan, who put out another parody song to celebrate his team and spur them on to victory in the playoffs. Last year, he and his pals cranked out this fight song, set to the tune of Blur's Song 2, which has been a popular in-rink celebration tune at the CTC for a long time
Whether last year's song affected the Senators as a group or not, you have to assume that it did. They lost the first three games of the series and fell to Toronto in six.
This spring, the Senators made the playoffs again, and guess who was back, back again? Ivan got loose with another parody song. This time, he parodied Eminem's Without Me and it didn't go particularly well for him on social media.
The Senators immediately fell behind in the Carolina series, 0-2, and so the club decided Ivan had to be stopped while there was still time.
On their social media on Thursday, the team posted a video of Ivan, standing on a street in Taiwan, claiming he was sent away by the Senators, who wanted him as far away from the CTC as possible.
On a couple of occasions during the video, it looked like Ivan was about to be run over in the street by a scooter, which, as punishment, might have been a little over the top. They have scooters here in Ottawa.
In a way, I feel like I share in the blame for these Sens playoff parody song missteps.
A million years ago, when I co-hosted the morning show at Ottawa's TSN 1200 radio from 2000 to 2019, I'd put out a parody song before every Sens playoff series, and after clicking around a bit, I realized that a few of them are still lingering out there on the interwebs.
Leafs Suck (Outkast Parody)
All The Leafs Stink (Blink-182 Parody)
I Got a Feeling (Black Eyed Peas Parody)
Those playoff parody efforts of the past rarely ever brought the Senators any luck, and the tradition appears to have continued. To you, from failing hands, I throw the torch. Be yours to hold high... and to, apparently, jinx the hell out of the team.
Anyway, I'd like to apologize to Kyle and his generation for setting them up like this, and I'd also like to thank the organization for not banishing me or sending me to the moon back in the day.
Don't laugh. Team president Cyril Leeder was an avid listener in those days, and after witnessing all the musical playoff damage I did, he's not messing around anymore. Leeder said today that the club briefly considered getting Kyle entirely off the planet for this game.
It's playoff time. You do what you have to.
Steve Warne
The Hockey News