Before we get into the meat of this blog post, I’ve got a couple disclosures to make.
Firstly, I’m not a Senators fan. But like most who live in this city, I fully appreciate the importance of the hockey club to the city and its residents (both economically and spiritually). It’s part of the fabric.
Secondly, I absolutely think the Senators need to move their rink to Lebreton Flats.
Why?
It’s simple, really. As a Leaf fan who has attended dozens of games at the ACC over the years, I’ve grown used to taking the half-hour subway ride from Yorkdale down to the ACC.
It’s easy, it’s cheap, there’s no traffic and no stress. Parking isn’t a worry. The rink is centrally located and close to hundreds of restaurants, bars and nightclubs.
Compare that to sitting in traffic and interminable parking lots for hours coming and going from a Sens game, the choice to me seems obvious (and yes, I realize Ottawa doesn’t have a subway. But light rail is coming).
So I wanted to gauge the sentiment of interested Twitter users.
The result?
I’m encouraged to say that, according to our analysis at least, most of the opinionated tweets seem to favour the move as well (see chart above).
After looking at tweets from mid December to Jan. 5 mentioning the NHL club and “moving”, “Lebreton”, “flats” or “downtown”, we found that a bit less than 50 per cent were in favour of a move.
Hi Orléans! If the @Senators move to LeBreton, you could get there in about half the time. #otttraffic #Ottawa #NHL
— LeBreton Sens (@LeBretonSens) December 11, 2014
Around 53 per cent of tweets were neutral, ie. retweeting the news, while just three per cent were against such a move (and I’m pretty sure I can guess which part of town they all live in).
RT if you support @Senators move to LeBreton Flats. Show them we have the community support needed! #Sens #Sensarmy #ottnews #ottcity — LeBreton Sens (@LeBretonSens) December 30, 2014
Looks like, for Sens fans on Twitter at least, the choice is a no-brainer as well—although there are still some holdouts (although the below tweet is about the IIHF World Junior Championships, and not NHL hockey):
To the people who say @Senators need a new arena downtown. http://t.co/shcXjAvYZi Montreal stuggles with attendance, Ottawa holds record.
— Steven Chartrand (@StevenChartrand) January 5, 2015
