The NHL recently shut down a Habs Fan watch party in Gatineau to protect Senators' territorial rights, and laughably, now a petition is making the rounds.
One of the Senators' biggest goals, as a business, is to try to build a bigger fan base on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. But the recent shutdown of a Habs fan watch party in Gatineau isn't earning them much goodwill at the moment.
Local Montreal Canadiens fans were invited to a viewing party on Saturday to watch Game 2 of the NHL Eastern Final at the Slush Puppie Centre in Gatineau, where 400 of the 4000 seats had been sold at $13 apiece.
Organizers got the okay from TVA Sports, whose TV feed they would be using, but they didn't run it by the NHL or the Senators. So, shortly after tickets went on sale, the league intervened, telling the organizers that holding a Montreal Canadiens-based event of this scale in Gatineau is in violation of the Senators' exclusive territorial marketing rights.
Now, according to the Globe and Mail, there's a petition making the rounds to push back against the league's decision to shut the event down. The paper says the petition has nearly 6,500 signatures so far.
Naturally, organizers were disappointed by the decision, as was the charity involved. The Globe and Mail reported that the money from the event, after costs, was slated for Le Boulev’Art de la Valle, a local mental health organization, which could have received as much as $20,000 from the event.
The plan is to eventually present the petition to the league and the Senators, presumably with hopes of approval for events like this, if not this year, then in the future. The Canadiens are still alive this spring, trailing the NHL Eastern Final 2-1 after dropping back-to-back overtime games to the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Senators are in a tricky spot.
They'd like to build a bigger fan base in Gatineau, and it obviously doesn't serve them well to allow another NHL franchise, one of their heated rivals, to be celebrated by thousands at a big event right in their backyard. It literally helps to get Ottawa-area hockey fans super excited about an NHL product that isn't theirs.
Critics have suggested that the Sens are being petty, and what's more, if they had allowed the watch party to go ahead, there probably wouldn't be this much talk about the event, nor would there be negative Globe and Mail headlines about hockey fan petitions being shoved in their face, or charities missing out.
In the short term, I would agree that this probably set back their goal of building support in Quebec more than allowing the party would have.
But this is a long-term decision that comes with short-term pain, and like ripping off a bandaid or yanking out a tooth, the Sens will soon be glad they did it.
If the Senators had played nice and looked the other way on this event, then there's another one just around the corner. And another, and another, and another.
Without a hint of hyperbole, it could evolve into a Gatineau tradition; NHL customers gathering by the thousands in Senators' territory to celebrate an NHL product that isn't Ottawa's. Local TV stations will then beam the images of the Habs fan party into every Ottawa-Gatineau living room and social media account.
If territory doesn't matter, maybe the Branchaud-Brière complex will want to host a Montreal Canadiens fan fest this summer. Maybe the new rink at Lansdowne will one day be a good spot for some Habs preseason games. Let's beam Habs-Bruins games into the Ottawa market at the same time as a Sens-Penguins game.
With apologies to charity groups, who receive millions from the Sens Community Foundation every year, but allowing major promotion of the Montreal Canadiens in the Ottawa market won't help the Senators with their long-term goal of flipping Gatineau.
Admittedly, it's an extremely tall order hat that probably requires a downtown rink and a championship, but why make it harder than it has to be?
The NHL wisely and fairly set up territorial rights to protect its 32 member teams and help each of them have success in the geographical market directly around them.
The question shouldn't be 'Why didn't the Senators allow this?' It should be 'Why would they?'
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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