Francophone Outreach: Right Idea, Wrong Approach by Andlauer

Unless you stayed offline on Monday, you probably saw the hot water that Michael Andlauer and the Ottawa Senators got in on Monday. They announced their plans to play 2025 pre-season games in Québec City, and on the surface, there's seemingly no issue with that, especially because we know how passionate Andlauer has been about connecting with the Francophone community in Ontario and Québec. He has consistently referred to the "Ottawa-Gatineau" community as he tries to build ties on the other side of the river, which had been usually pushed to the side in years prior under previous ownership. Furthermore, Andlauer had the team play an intra-squad game at the Centre Slush Puppie in Gatineau as a way to expose the community to the Senators. As a Francophone, Andlauer clearly sees a business opportunity with a community that can be converted into Senators fans.

Pre-season games are never the most interesting anyway, so I don't think anyone really cares when they play elsewhere for Kraft Hockeyville or in Europe to showcase the NHL. Experiencing the Centre Vidéotron in Québec City as well as the city itself will be unique for the players, and I'm always a fan of giving new markets some exposure. But that should have been where it ended, and the Senators took it a step too far. Here is what Andlauer had to say about Québec City as a market:

"Quebec deserves, in my opinion, an NHL team, but that will not be on my file. In the future, I hope we can play a few regular season games in Quebec City...If we can play in Sweden, we should be able to play in Quebec City. That's a decision the NHL must make."

I'm not going to say what his intentions were, but it is...interesting timing that he said this in the same week that frustrations came out about how slow the NCC is being with LeBreton Flats. Some would say that those quotes could be a shot at the NCC to say that there's a viable market nearby if they can't get a land deal done. Andlauer had this to say about staying in Ottawa though, which should reassure fans:

"No, because for me, I love Ottawa-Gatineau; I love our supporters (fans)...Despite the fact that we are 20 minutes from downtown in Kanata, we can continue to make it work, but it would be better to be downtown."

That quote shouldn't have to even be said though, because I don't think anyone thought he even had relocation on his mind until they brought up Québec City. I'm truly not worried about relocation, but it's fair for fans to think about it before a new arena is fully built.

Playing regular season games should absolutely not be on the table, though. Sure, the NHL sometimes has a few regular season games in Europe, but that's more for exposure to their product rather than trying to get a market interested about an expansion/relocation team. In Québec City's case, they've wanted a team back for years and Andlauer publicly stated they should have one back, so it's not exactly the best look to potentially be taking away home games in favour of a future market. I get that Québec City has enough passionate fans to support a team (although I think the NHL is only looking at Atlanta, Houston, and Arizona), but why is that the Senators' job to help support that?

Ottawa's metro population is just under 1.5 million, and Québec City's is only about 840,000, so I can't imagine the NHL would want an even smaller market in Eastern Canada—it would be an either/or situation. I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep the Senators in Ottawa. Then the final blow was the Senators tweeting out a now-deleted photo of Spartcat wearing an abomination: a half Nordiques/half Sens jersey:

On the one hand, it's just a jersey, but on the other: was this really necessary? The optics of it are terrible, and it gives off the impression that these cities are sharing a team. It reminds me of when the Tampa Bay Rays brought up the possibility of sharing the franchise between Tampa and Montréal—something that was so logistically ridiculous. Senators fans have no connection to the Nordiques, nor do they want to be associated with it. I guess the hope is that former Nordiques fans could be converted into Senators fans, but splitting the jersey in half was very misguided.

To the team's credit, they did some damage control and walked back a few things in order to calm peoples' fears. Ian Mendes has been a phenomenal hire for the Senators as a VP of Communications, as he opened his DMs to field criticisms and questions about the Québec news:

He's acutely aware of the fact that the organization was never transparent in the past and he's trying to change that. They also had Cyril Leeder go on TSN1200 to answer questions afterwards. Leeder took ownership for the poor marketing, which is something we would not have seen in years past:

Andlauer is smart in recognizing that there are plenty of Francophone fans who have felt like they are not the target audience for the Senators. But perhaps it's too ambitious of a plan to focus on a city that's almost five hours away and has no real ties to Ottawa. Let's start with Gatineau first and not worry about Québec City getting another NHL team, because...as a Senators fan, who cares?

In the end, this story doesn't have to be a big thing. But it was not a good look and an unforced error on their part. Based on their damage control though, I think Andlauer will approach these topics more carefully in the future and hopefully focus on Francophone communities as a whole rather than just Québec City. The Senators aren't going anywhere, and more importantly, Sparty has a reputation to hold up: