Following widespread online rumours this week, the Senators’ biggest rival isn’t the Leafs or the Habs; it’s digital algorithms and online speculation.
Earlier this week, in lieu of concrete information related to goaltender Linus Ullmark’s absence from the team for “personal reasons”, a nasty rumor filled the void and made the rounds on social media.
The rumor spread across platforms like X and Reddit as if it were a verified fact, and forced the team into a no win situation where they couldn’t ignore the rumor, but also would shoot themselves in the foot by addressing them at all.
Without repeating the rumor and giving it more oxygen for respect to the players involved, a few basic questions should have been answered before such a story was even entertained as legitimate, namely Ullmark being seen at recent games and questioning the anonymous source from a new and since deleted account.
None of that mattered. The uncomfortable reality is that social media platforms are not designed to spread verified information or foster thoughtful discussion. They’re designed to maximize engagement at any cost. While this has far-reaching global consequences well beyond hockey, let’s keep the focus on how it affects a team like the Senators. Twenty years into the social media era, algorithms have become very good at exploiting two basic truths.
First, nothing drives engagement like rage bait and schadenfreude directed at people, organizations or ideas users already dislike. Humans are emotional, and confirmation bias thrives in echo chambers. If something aligns with what people want to believe, it becomes “true,” and many will aggressively defend it.
Second, anonymity, lack of accountability, and constant distraction encourage people to abandon critical thinking and decency. Add bots amplifying outrage, and it becomes irrelevant that families can be harmed or reputations damaged. The poster gets their dopamine hit, platforms generate ad revenue, and everyone moves on.
There might be some uncomfortable truths for Senators fans to hear, but follow me on a little thought experiment here.There are seven Canadian NHL teams. Based on history, population, and franchise value, Toronto and Montreal clearly dominate national attention. Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary occupy the next tier, leaving Ottawa and Winnipeg at the bottom. Winnipeg is geographically isolated from Canadian rivals and largely spared the worst of the pile-on. Ottawa, meanwhile, sits between the two most popular franchises in the country—a problem since day one. This problem used to mean opposing fans invading the home rink and a financial competitive imbalance. Now, it has more insidious, far reaching consequences for what might be the most hated franchise by volume in the NHL.
Let’s just say, hypothetically, overall Canadian hockey fandom broke down like this:
Toronto – 30%
Montreal – 25%
Other Canadian teams – 40%
Ottawa – 5%
Other (US-based teams) - 5%
The exact numbers don’t matter. The imbalance does.
The Senators have always been outnumbered and overhated, and therefore, in the always-connected social media landscape, the Senators’ greatest value for engagement is rarely success on the ice. It’s engaging that 55% that considers the team a rival enemy. Even in 2007, during Facebook’s nascent era, the Senators–Ducks Stanley Cup Final was among the least-watched in years. When Ottawa is winning and quietly going about their business, only Senators fans care.
When they’re struggling, everyone piles on, because it’s fun to kick a rival when they’re down. When a majority of fans emotionally invest in your failure, negativity—true or not—will always drown out reason and analysis. This is compounded by Ottawa being home to the federal government; an unpopular institution for many Canadians at the best of times; and by hockey’s inherent subjectivity. Calls, suspensions, and physical play all live in gray areas ripe for bad-faith arguments.
Look at the biggest Senators stories of the social media era. Every one of them is negative or encourages negative discourse: Ubergate, the Karlsson–Hoffman saga, Eugene Melnyk’s controversies, Pierre Dorion’s soundbites, the Dadonov trade fiasco, Tim Stützle’s “diving” narrative, Ridly Greig’s empty-net slapshot. The stories that explode online are almost always negative. Even baseless Brady Tkachuk trade rumors or celebrations of him getting sucker punched recently gain traction because rival fans crave schadenfreude. Rules are rewritten in real time to justify it.
Positive stories like Michael Andlauer’s purchase of the team or breaking a long playoff drought barely register in comparison.
The Leafs experience the same, yet inverse problem. When 30% of the country lives and dies with your team, owned by a media apparatus that both owns and covers the team nationally, no less; the other 70% revels in your failures.
Senators fans aren’t immune; Countless Ottawa fans join forces with their rival fans to annually relish in the latest embarrassing Leafs defeat in the playoffs online and cheer as Mitch Marner was at least partially run out of town by both online and real-world harassment by similar forces that crossed over from the digital realm into the real world.
Social platforms don’t care about truth or accountability, or even creating a safe space for users. They care about engagement to the extent that a no-name account can spread a rumor so widely that a team is forced to issue a harshly worded PR statement debunking it.
In the era of legalized gambling, the incentives are even darker and can manipulate real-world results on the ice. As long as eyes stay glued and bets are placed, facts are secondary to feelings. Few things bring out bigger emotions in people than sports rivalries.
So what can the Senators do?
Winning helps—noise quiets when there’s nothing negative to latch onto. Keep focused on protecting your players/staff and creating a positive environment. Control the controllables. Be a little more forthcoming with information; but not to the embarrassing extent of the Melnyk/Dorion era.
Beyond that, the team may need to embrace its role as a villain.
You can’t out-PR an algorithm, and there is no option to cast yourself as a lovable underdog or overcome being a hated rival of the two biggest franchises. Lean into it. Be the heel. If you’re cast as the antagonist regardless, own it and turn it into an advantage as best you can.
For fans who want to engage with their team online, the best option is limiting engagement with the most toxic platforms. That’s easier said than done. Seek out verified sources, question rumors, find smaller moderated communities like the ones available on this very website, and real-life discussions in the real world with real people.
Accept that you cheer for a team that is disliked by the two biggest and loudest fanbases on these platforms, which can make you a target. Most importantly, for your own mental health, disconnect for a bit when it stops being fun. Sports are entertainment, not an obligation.
It’s a Brave New World for all of us these days, and the Senators are no exception.
By Andrew Sztein
The Hockey News - Ottawa
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