What if the Sens Were Pokemon? - Alternate Title: It's Going to be a Long Summer

By Kevin Lee

What if the Sens were Pokemon? Who would they be? Well we did an in-depth analysis to figure it out! We apologize for excluding our readers over the mental age of 16 (which consists solely of Bonk's Mullet's grandmother).

Gotta Stache 'Em All!

Peristy Business Insider: April 23, 2014

By Luke Peristy

It was like any other evening and I was watching The Last Play at Shea (as usual) when the phone rang.

Me: "Hello?"

Operator: "Would you like to accept a collect call from...'Dat Mullet tho'...? Please press 7. Now."

Me: [Reluctantly presses 7]

Mullet: "Lukaaaaaaas, my main man! What's up, bro?"

Me: "Well, you know, since Sens hockey is over I'm not really doing much. Just waiting for hockey to bring meaning to my life again."

Mullet: "Wow, sounds like you're in a real existential funk . . . anyway, the wheels of the blogger industry must continue to turn. Have you thought at all about what you're going to write about this summer? Chet's got his Power Rankings, and I think you could use a thing as well. How about it?"

Me: "Sounds good in principle, I guess. I might as well try to fill the void in my soul where playoff hockey should be by creating web content that literally tens of people will read. What sort of thing did you have in mind?"

Mullet: "No idea. I don't like to micromanage. You know what, let's just do what we always do and steal something from Down Goes Brown. Are you familiar with his Grab Bag articles?"

Me: "Down Goes Brown writes articles about Joel Quenneville?"

Mullet: "What? No. Just pick a bunch of random categories to write about and stick to the same format every week."

Me: "Ok . . ."

Mullet: "Oh yeah, and give it a catchy title, too. Something with a pun in it. I hear that's kinda your thing."

Me: [Smugly] "Well, I've always thought of myself as a cunning-"

Mullet: [Interrupting] "Don't finish that sentence. What's wrong with you?"

Me: "Ham! I was going to say ham! You know, like a bad actor."

Mullet: "Don't patronize me. Anyway, I'd love to help you figure the new format out, but I've gotta finish this guest post for Second City Hockey called 'Seven Ways Joel Quenneville's Mustache is like Paul Maclean's Mustache'. I'm sure you'll be fine. Talk to you later, Lukas."

Me: "Actually, it's just-"

[click]

Me: "...Luke."

So without further ado, here is the inaugural edition of Peristy Business Insider.

Note: This column is not associated with any business, insiders, or business insiders, and if any of my future employers are reading this, it's not associated with any Peristys, either.

The Chet Sellers and Luke Peristy Podcast - Episode 5

by Chet Sellers and Luke Peristy

The season's over, which means it's time for some serious hot stove talk - what's going to happen to Jason Spezza? Will Matt Kassian find another team? And can the Senators find a way to sign Patric Persson? Find out in our latest super-sized episode!

Remember - you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here or by RSS here!

Eugene Melnyk: Millionaire, Businessman, NHL Owner, Racehorse Owner... and now Movie Star?

By Kevin Lee

We all know our owner of the Ottawa Senators as a millionaire, businessman, and devoted racehorse owner. However, is he also something else. I happened to stumble upon the IMDb profile of a "Eugene Melnyk (II)". His filmography only consists of a single TV documentary, featuring him as himself. Nothing to see here.

Eugene Melnyk has Everything Under Control

by Bonk's Mullet

Eugene Melnyk made his year-end media rounds on Tuesday to extinguish the flames of the bush fire that was the 2013-2014 Ottawa Senators season. Melnyk was kind enough to temper the flames with a tank of gasoline. You wanted honey? Melnyk took a baseball bat to a beehive. That's the kind of selfless leadership our owner provides.

Many of you know that I'm currently a PhD student in linguistics. Recently, I've spent a great deal of time studying the rare language known as "Melnykese." There's only one remaining speaker in the world and he happens to be the owner of your Ottawa Senators. Melnykese is a peculiar language, in that speakers tend to say words that mean the exact opposite of what exists in reality. This can be highly confusing to English speakers as the language looks and sounds exactly like English.

Lucky for all of you, I've taken the liberty of translating key excerpts from Melnyk's interviews yesterday. Eugene Melnyk began the day with a telephone conference call with local media, presumably because the fax lines were jammed. He then called in to TSN 1200 and the FAN 590 before doing a Twitter Q&A. I've broken down his answers into convenient categories.

Game Summary - Game 82: A Happy Ending to a Sad Story

by Steve On Sens and Bonk's Mullet

The Mullet: "Hey Steve, seeing as how bad this season has been, it seems only fitting if you do the summary to end the year"

Steve: "I don't know..."

The Mullet: "I'll snag you a Paddy's Pub keychain from the Philly airport next time I'm in Ottawa"

Steve: "You're a good man Doty. I'll do it."

A Detailed Breakdown of Questions Posed to Eugene Melnyk on Twitter

by Bonk's Mullet

It hasn't been an easy year for Sens fans: Losing their franchise hero, being promised a cup run by the media, and then falling flat on their faces right out of the gate.

Thankfully, the Ottawa Senators have an owner in Eugene Melnyk who cares. An owner who is willing to stick his neck out for his fans. An owner who is willing to publicly embarrass himself routinely so that by comparison, the on-ice product seems affable. After 81 games, Melnyk hasn't lost his resolve.

Photoshop Gameday Preview- Ottawa @ Pittsburgh

by Capital Gains

It's game day! The Sens are in Pittsburgh tonight to take on the Penguins for their final game of the regular season. It seems like just yesterday we were polishing our keyboards and sharpening our wit in the pre-season.

Spirits are high coming into tonight's game, as the Sens beat the Leafs 1-0 last night. Ottawa is looking to end this disappointing season on a high note, and go for their fifth straight win tonight. Here are the story lines for Game 82:

Game Summary - Game 81: Goals? Where we're going, we don't need goals.

by Bonk's Mullet

Sens-Leafs needs no intro! Let's do it!

Photoshop Gameday Preview - Toronto @ Ottawa

by Capital Gains

It's game day! The Sens are in Ottawa tonight to take on the hometown Leafs. Hold on, that can't be right. Ottawa is hoping to build off of their 2-1 shootout win against the Devils, and win their fourth game in a row.

The stakes are raised for tonight's game, not because of the standings, but because it will be a #SensMotB game! If you're new here, Sens Money on the Board is a charity drive in which you pledge money for in-game events. For example, you can pledge $6.50 for a Karlsson assist, $16 for a MacArthur goal, $19.67 for a Sens win, or whatever your creative little mind can think of.

To make a pledge, follow the instructions here.

 Now on to the story lines:

Game Summary - Game 80: Goodbye, Farewell and Potvin

By Luke Peristy

The play-by-play announcer and colour commentator are the most ubiquitous parts of watching sports on television, which means it's easy to take for granted the effect they have on one's viewing experience. A good commentary team can take a bad game and make it watchable. A bad commentary team can do the reverse. A great commentary team can take any game and make it memorable, and sometimes they don't even have to be drunk the whole time like Howard Cosell.

There's a couple of play-by-play announcing teams that will always stick out in my mind. Growing up, I absorbed as much of the lore of the 1972 Summit Series as I could possibly get my hands on, and because of that Foster Hewitt and Brian Conacher are forever entrenched in my mind as the voices of old-timey hockey. In the NFL, Pat Summerall's deadpan play-by-play was the perfect counterpoint to John Madden's exuberant analysis. Say what you will about Bob Cole, but there's few other voices in sports that so effectively match the excitement in the building they're broadcasting from. Bob Cole and Harry Neale were the broadcasting team for many of my (worst) childhood hockey memories, so much so that, as Chet Sellers once memorably put it, "I expect him to narrate my murder." Only Orson Welles ranks higher than Bob Cole on my Voices That I Immediately Associate With Impending Doom Power Rankings.

For years, Dean Brown has been the voice of weekday night Sens hockey, and since 2010, Denis Potvin has been by his side providing the sort of insight that only a former player suffering from frequent acid flashbacks can provide.

He doesn't even know where he is right now.

Sens fans have invited Dean and Denis into their homes ~50 times a year or more, and while I can't speak for all of you, to me they feel like family in the sense that they never shut up and let me get a word in edgewise. 

Tonight is the last time they'll be visiting. I'm going to miss hearing one of Dean's many catchphrases, or listening to Denis tell a story during a blowout about what it was like sharing a hooker hotel room with Mike Bossy in the 80s. I don't know who's going to be calling Senators games next year, but I do know that they will have some very large microphones to fill. (That's what you do with microphones, right? You fill them? I'm just a blogger, here...) 

One way or another, Dean and Denis have touched all of us.

@PxPOttawa 3 yrs ago i ordered eggs by saying "scramble" like u do and the waitress LOLed; happy to say today we got engaged. thx again
— Chet Sellers (@chet_sellers) July 17, 2013

So, thanks for everything, guys. You're welcome to watch a game at my place any time. (Bring beer.)

To the game!

Photoshop Gameday Preview - New Jersey @ Ottawa

By Kevin Lee

The Ottawa Senators welcome the New Jersey Devils to the CTC for their final home game with more Sens fans in the crowd than the opposition. With Ottawa out of the playoff picture, this is their first opportunity to play spoiler. Spoiler of fun! The Devils were also eliminated from playoff contention last night, so this one's just for our entertainment.

Game Summary - Game 79: Senators @ Islanders - Elimination Night

by Chet Sellers

Does anyone remember laughter? Does anyone remember the giddy optimism of September? The gallows humour of late Fall, secretly expecting a team giving up 50 shots a night would still turn things around? The newfound hope of January? The respite of the Olympics? The March from Hell? As the days get longer and the snowbanks finally recede into mud and gravel and litter, does anyone else have the conditioned response that it must be playoff time?

It isn't. The Columbus Blue Jackets can eliminate the Ottawa Senators from playoff contention with a point tonight . . . or tomorrow, or Friday, or Saturday. How the Senators perform in their last four games almost seems beside the point. Death is coming. Better to be quick and painless now than drawn out for yet another night. Let the axe fall unseen, somewhere in Ohio, a thousand kilometres away. We're ready.

And yet. The Ottawa Senators aren't a playoff team, and they aren't even a very good team most nights, but if you are reading this they are probably your team, and tonight's game, win or lose, is one of only four remaining. Only four more nights at home on the couch, the evening planned around your team. Only four more nights of Erik Karlsson, of Jason Spezza, of Dean and Denis and Paul and Patrick and Clarke. Only four more nights and then they're all gone, some for months, some forever.

The season is almost over and the Senators are almost dead, but as we enjoy what little time we have left with them, at RBM we'd rather throw a wake than a funeral, and that means celebrating tonight the only way we know how - by making stupid, borderline-offensive jokes. Let's go!

Photoshop Gameday Preview - Ottawa @ NY Islanders

by Steve On Sens

Searching for revenge for Wednesday's playoff crushing loss, the Senators travel to Long Island to take on the New York Islanders. With a 3-2 win over the Rangers on Saturday, the Senators hit the 80 point mark and remain 7 points behind Columbus who are hanging onto the final wild card spot. 

Game Summary: Game 78 - The Show Must Go On!

by Bonk's Mullet and Capital Gains

Congratulations on making it this far. Last night's game was torture, so I thought I'd lighten the mood with something a little different tonight.

We're at game 78 and your Ottawa Senators are sitting in 24th place, but as they say on Broadway, "the show must go on even if you just lost 7-4 to a geographical rival the night before..." or something like that! And how fitting that the Senators are on Broadway tonight to take on the New York Rangers.

Will the Sens lie down on Broadway? Stay tuned to find out in our special Broadway-themed game summary!

Game Summary: Game 77 - Sens Blow Three Goal Lead, Lose Worse than the Other Time They Blew a Three Goal Lead

by Steve On Sens

T'was a stormy April night in the nation's capital. I had just returned from another evening of beekeeping when I got the fax. "Chet, Luke and Brochenski are all out. Lower body injury. Day to day." Is what it read. "You're in Steve" was written on the last line.

Game Summary - Game 76: Alexei Yashin's Former Team @ Alexei Yashin's More Former Team

By Luke Peristy

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." - Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III

Those words, originally said in a movie about the criminal underworld, are being said by Sens fans everywhere right now. While the comparison of the Senators playoff hopes to the Cosa Nostra may not be altogether flattering one (for either the Senators or the Mafia), there's no doubt this quote applies at the moment. Ottawa has put together a nice little streak, staved off mathematical elimination for an extra week and a half, and turned what once seemed like an impossibility into a mere extreme improbability. Playing out the string has turned into stringing us along, and I, for one, am not having any of it. As much fun as it's been to cheer for a team that's finally playing its best hockey once they needn't have bothered, I am becoming increasingly aware of the need to steel myself in anticipation of the axe that will inevitably fall on the Senators and their playoff hopes, much like we must all eventually face our own mortality as we shuffle off this mortal coil.

Oh, who am I kidding!?

THE DREAM IS ALIVE! WE'RE NOT DEAD, YET! LET'S DO THIS! WOOOOOOOOO!

*Charges into rest of game recap*

*Readers kind of just stand around and shrug* 

Ottawa Senators Off-Ice Power Rankings - April 2014

by Chet Sellers

The Senators saw their playoff aspirations all but evaporate during the month of March, a month that also saw no end to off-ice drama and personnel changes. Ales Hemsky came to town and taught Jason Spezza that you can't write a love letter unless you spell Czech. Cory Conacher took his microgrit sandpaper to Buffalo. We said goodbye to Joe Corvo for the second, and presumably final, time. Bobby Ryan revealed a closely-held secret, and then some kids arrived to brighten everybody's lives. Like Sens through the hourglass, these were the days of our lives last month. Let's go!