News Article: Quebec City, Andlauer and the Sparticat Fiasco

[RedWhiteBlackGold]

usually love Cyril Leeder, but he came off looking quite stupid with the jersey idea and just made matters worse in his radio interview, as if blaming the fans for overreacting when it was his missteps that caused all the off ice drama. Hope he does better than this going forward

While I agree it was a dumb decision, honestly would people have reacted this way if they were promoting pre-season games in Halifax and Sparty had a mashed up jersey with the Mooseheads? Likely not. Quebec is a touchy subject close to home.

 

[Tuna99]

Andlauer, in a month has completely made his reputation as a confused guy who’s out of touch with the community - his 613 hat interview and this Quenec thing- he’s an ackward guy with a blurry vision for Sens fans.

Andlauer should talk less, it doesn’t go well when he talks. He talks when he has no point, like he brought a hat out to prove his point but couldn’t answer the questions Caire Hannah was asking him - don’t do interviews like this. Stupid

Buying a Nordiques jersey to cut it in half is also an insult to the Nordiques, Quenec Citu doesn’t want memories of the Nordieqes, they want the Nordiques and not a guy from NDG looking to be a local hero for 2 pre season games.

And I don’t think it strengthens his postion with the NCC, I think it weakens it. If he has options, take them. Why would you Allie with the NCC when you have Leeder there who knows how horrible they are to deal with? He doesn’t have options that’s why and now tje fans think he’s dumb, didn’t help at all

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

usually love Cyril Leeder, but he came off looking quite stupid with the jersey idea and just made matters worse in his radio interview, as if blaming the fans for overreacting when it was his missteps that caused all the off ice drama. Hope he does better than this going forward

It is always the fans. Especially if you are a part of the organization

 

[Tuna99]

It is always the fans. Especially if you are a part of the organization

Andlauer should stop talking he only makes it worse. In Ottawa, it’s always the fans to blame. We are either to cheap, to sensitive or to damaged by other teams.

Just focus on Ottawa, not Toronto and the concerts, not Quebec and defunct franchises, not Hamilton and your hat thingy - Just the Ottawa Senators all the time like the Habs and Leafs do and everything will be fine

Andlaure saying the fans have scar tissue when if the Leafs fans cut a Atlanta Tharshers jersey in half and the owner hinted he wanted to play regular season games there Leaves fans would have their Dads call into the radio station to tell let the Bosses know how angry they were

 

[Back in Black]

All ado about nothing....

All I ever saw from this was 2 pre-games in Quebec City, nothing more...

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

While I agree it was a dumb decision, honestly would people have reacted this way if they were promoting pre-season games in Halifax and Sparty had a mashed up jersey with the Mooseheads? Likely not. Quebec is a touchy subject close to home.

The point is that someone in Leader's position, or a marketing team paid to understand the market should have known this.

If we take Andlauer at face value (I think he is lying/spinning things) and say the pageantry for the preseason games has nothing to do with the NCC, anybody who remotely understands the fanbase would have told him that making a big deal out of a business partnership with the Quebec group, let alone doing it this past week after he publicized his dissatisfaction with the NCC was going to be a huge problem.

It's part of why I think it was intentional. There is no way that Leeder and others are this stupid and out of touch with the local fanbase. They knew exactly what they were doing.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Andlauer should stop talking he only makes it worse. In Ottawa, it’s always the fans to blame. We are either to cheap, to sensitive or to damaged by other teams.

Just focus on Ottawa, not Toronto and the concerts, not Quebec and defunct franchises, not Hamilton and your hat thingy - Just the Ottawa Senators all the time like the Habs and Leafs do and everything will be fine

Andlaure saying the fans have scar tissue when if the Leafs fans cut a Atlanta Tharshers jersey in half and the owner hinted he wanted to play regular season games there Leaves fans would have their Dads call into the radio station to tell let the Bosses know how angry they were

He is quickly ruining his honeymoon period with the fans. At least Melnyk's lasted almost a decade before his ineptitude was public.

He hired Staios, who has done a good job fixing this build by hiring a coach who at least in the short term has them playing a defensive system, and identifying some unsexy needs in the roster like swapping a local star in Chychrun for a steady RHD in Jensen.

They are going to get more forgiveness because the team is doing fantastic right now, but I'll put it this way - if this was genuinely an innocent mistake, I am a lot more concerned over the competence of ownership and their top management than I would be if this was a conspiracy to pressure the city and NCC.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

I think this one is a bit subjective as to how much it bothers one person to the next. There are also a lot that think it was a nothing burger other than the jersey being a misstep. I think there is a market they can capitalize on and I don't think it's comparable to Melnyk because he was basically sabotaging the operation from the inside while these guys are out there doing the right things, cleaning up with hires and renos, spending to the cap, hockey team winning some games, etc.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

 

[Adele Dazeem]

Some of you are real sensitive people.
Loser mentality, inferiority complex. Whatever you want to call it, it's very palpable around Senators social media.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

I can't imagine souring on this guy already after everything we endured during Melnyk's last 10 years or so.

 

[aragorn]

I doubt we have seen the end of this, they will just do things quietly behind the scenes & out of the public eye now.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

I think this one is a bit subjective as to how much it bothers one person to the next. There are also a lot that think it was a nothing burger other than the jersey being a misstep. I think there is a market they can capitalize on and I don't think it's comparable to Melnyk because he was basically sabotaging the operation from the inside while these guys are out there doing the right things, cleaning up with hires and renos, spending to the cap, hockey team winning some games, etc.

There were hundreds of replies to the tweets of the photos, and counting, 99 percent negative.

Granted, that is Twitter - but it is the Senators mainstream account. It's not some niche superfan account that only people who live on Sens Twitter respond to.

If anything, it seems like the casual fans were a lot more negative than the superfans. If you read the threads here, it's relatively split between the five guys calling people insecure for being concerned, and the five other guys who are very concerned. There were no positive takes on the Sens posts. They eventually deleted both after hundreds of negative comments.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

There were hundreds of replies to the tweets of the photos, and counting, 99 percent negative.

Granted, that is Twitter - but it is the Senators mainstream account. It's not some niche superfan account that only people who live on Sens Twitter respond to.

If anything, it seems like the casual fans were a lot more negative than the superfans. If you read the threads here, it's relatively split between the five guys calling people insecure for being concerned, and the five other guys who are very concerned. There were no positive takes on the Sens posts. They eventually deleted both after hundreds of negative comments.

I'm not saying it's a niche and that some aren't pissed, I'm saying it's not black and white that everyone is pissed. I think there's a section of the base that is pissed, a section that doesn't GAF at all, and then a whole host of people likely in the middle that it doesn't muster enough anger to bother worrying. As usual, the outraged will be the loudest.

I don't blame anyone that is a bit upset by this, but I find the comparisons to Melnyk laughable.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

I can't imagine souring on this guy already after everything we endured during Melnyk's last 10 years or so.

I don't think anybody is souring on him. I think they are judging him by his actions. People want stable ownership that respects the market. Trust has to be earned.

If anything, the response to this enforces that sentiment that fans just really want to believe the bad times are over and they now have stable ownership who works for them. A lot of fans bought into the very poorly constructed "we're sorry!" Leeder apology, where he half-blamed the fans for calling them out on it. A lot of people were ready to move on, because they don't want more chaos, they touted how it was such a good example of leadership. It isn't as if Andlauer is getting the Melnyk response. Where as, this Quebec thing was peak-Melnyk. Has anybody tried to pull at Andlauer's face to make sure it's not a Scooby Doo style mask?

The entire thing was absurd. Playing with fire as far as marketing to this fanbase goes. I can't wrap my head around how a management group that has access to people like Leeder and Mendes, who have been in this market and should understand why highly publicizing a business partnership with our greatest relocation threat during the same week that the owner heavily publicized further issues securing an arena (the same season Arizona just relocated) might be a bad idea.

People are trying to minimize this to being "they were mad that they cut the logo", which detracts from what the actual issue was.

The positive take isn't that they weren't trying to use relocation to pressure the NCC, because that means the team is run by people who are completely ignorant of the market they are trying to sell their product to. Honestly, that's worse than it turning out that they were trying to pressure the NCC to get the arena done.

Also, Andlauer couldn't even go on soft-ball TSN 1200 to address this. He had to send Leeder. True leadership would have been Andlauer facing the fans instead of taking multiple days to get his story straight, and then only do an interview in Sens territory.