"We're A Team" - Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion On What To Be Optimistic About This Season
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Me with this video right now.
I never knew I needed a video in my life more than I needed this one right here. “Hey, Pierre. Yeah so everybody has been trashing your organization this summer. You just traded away a generational talent for a slightly underwhelming haul. People are starting to lose patience and I think a lot of people in Ottawa are at the point now where they wouldn’t really care if the team just up and left. What is one thing for Ottawa Senators nation to be optimistic about?”
***dramatic pause***
“We’re a team”.
And you know what? He is 100% correct. Say what you want about the Ottawa Senators right now but at least they’re a team. Want to know who had a worse offseason than the Sens? How about you go ask the Atlanta Thrashers about how their summer went. Oh yeah, that’s right, you can’t because they’re not even a team anymore. Did the Hartford Whalers lose their best player in a trade this offseason? No they did not because they’ve already lost their entire team. What if we stay in Canada and go ask the Quebec Nordiques about what they’re most optimistic about this season. I’ll tell you the answer–it’s nothing because they don’t exist anymore. Sure, maybe “we’re a team” isn’t much to work with as far as team mottos go. But at least the Ottawa Senators are still a team for the time being before Melnyk decides to ship them off somewhere new.
Quick sidenote here: I guess it’s somewhat important to mention that English isn’t Pierre Dorion’s first language. So that long pause after the question might not have just been him trying to come up with anything to say. Most likely he was having to process the question and then figure out the words he wanted to say in English. But still. When you’re the general manager of a Canadian market team who has just had the past 365 days the Senators have had? Maybe you and the rest of the brass probably should have went over some talking points before going on Sportsnet during your first preseason game back. Melnyk and the rest of the brass really hung him out to dry there, huh? You knew that a question like that was going to get asked and you still couldn’t give the guy a canned answer in English to go with? A damn shame.
And now with the Curb music…