Trade Mayors, Not Beavertails
“I hate them; I hate them. I think they’re so cringy and lame. I’m hoping to avoid them.”
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe on mayor bets during Stanley Cup playoffs
Finally after more than two years in office, The Bulldog has found something on which this humble publication and the mayor agree.
Mayoral bets between NHL playoff opposing city leaders suck. All bets are off. Thank goodness.
They became a special tradition in Ottawa for a few years because they provided former mayor Jim Watson a tacky opportunity to get yet another inconsequential photo op. Ham … can you say ham?
Furthermore, what does the City of Ottawa have to trade in these austere times … a pothole, 750 used LRT axles, twice as many wheel hubs. loan payments on Lansdowne, a bucket of spit? It’s so hard to know. A night mayor for a Toronto Maple Leaf goaltender, both usually of the same value? Virtue-signaling versus a half-century dream of a Stanley Cup? Both vapour.
That said, god bless the playoffs. They are one exciting distraction from the crappiest spring since Colonel By went over-budget on the canal. The more things change, the more …
So a note of good taste for Sutcliffe and his renege on the horribly cliched mayor barter. Wait a second, a mayor barter. Could we trade mayors? That has some appeal.
But maybe not.
Anyway, kudos to Sutcliffe on keeping the crusty old Beavertail in the empty city hall vault.
Now can he get the buses to run on time?
Ken Gray
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
About those buses … It would be great if he could also get the trains to run at all, never mind on time. It seems he doesn’t have Mussolini’s skills in that department.
While we’re talking about “cringy and lame”, how about the practice of naming part of Elgin Street as “The Sens Mile”? What does Elgin, which is many miles from the CTC rink where they actually play, have to do with the Sens?
The only thing I can think of is that, in the Watson era when this originated, it meant that Mayor Jim didn’t have to really do anything to support the Sens plus Elgin was right outside his office window so he didn’t have to exert much effort to attend events and appear to be supporting the team. It also saved him the cost of a playoff ticket and I’d be willing to bet no money left his pocket when he ‘dropped in’ at an Elgin Street venue.
We all know that Watson had a ridiculous hate on for Eugene Melnyk, then the Sens owner. Since Melnyk would inevitably be out in Kanata at the game to truly support his team, Watson could put in an appearance, without having to risk running into Melnyk, somewhere on his fake “Sens Mile” and appear to be a Sens booster – which he categorically was not!
Unless someone can demonstrate why Elgin Street has more relevance to the Sens than almost any other street in the city, let’s drop this nonsense and support the Sens wherever we are across the city. Aside from anything else, that means family groups and kids’ hockey teams can be included in the Sens’ playoff efforts which an Elgin Street bar is really not conducive to.
Maybe the night mayor could get going to have things organized across the city that are more inclusive than the drunken revels on Elgin Street! At last, a task for him that should be relatively easy to carry out!
I have zero idea what any of this means. But then I despise paid hockey (and all professional sports) – which are just made up entertainment in very expensive taxpayer-paid facilities. And the beavertail? And mayoralty thing? No idea about any of it.
David,
Every year, during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the mayors of opposing teams bet against each other that their respective team will win. The loser has to pay some kind of penance to the winner which sometimes requires the losing mayor to wear the jersey of the winning team to a Council meeting or other significant event. Some of the bets include the loser sending the winning mayor a local delicacy such as Beavertails for Ottawa.
It’s intended as a friendly game to raise spirits among community members. Local news channels will usually play clips of the losing mayor wearing the winners’ jersey and the winning mayor eating the other city’s special food.
P.S. The Ottawa Senators are an outlier in hockey circles (hockey ovals?) in that their arena was not taxpayer funded.
Just to be clear, that’s the Senators that play hockey in Kanata, not the Senators that play politics in downtown Ottawa. The downtown ones play in a facility that’s entirely taxpayer-funded.
The Kanata rink – the one where the city put in a multi-million dollar highway interchange to serve it? And I suspect a zillion other hidden incentives. That one?
Trade mayors? Ottawa wins, my cousin, who lives in East York, will never speak to me again!
David, the original highway interchange at Huntmar was paid for by the province (Bob Rae, Premier), with a related financial obligation by the Senators to repay the province with interest.
Many years later the provincial government of the day (I do not recall whether it was during Mike Harris’ or Dalton McGuinty’s years at the helm) the province waived the remaining balance of the loan. In part because that interchange that also allowed people to access the retail, commercial and residential zones to both the north and south of the 417.
No municipal dollars, either from the then City of Kanata, the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton (pre-dating the amalgamation of 2000) paid for the interchange. To be clear, the residents, building owners and employers in the general area most certainly enjoy the benefits of that interchange.
David: The Sens (well, the fans did I guess) paid for that interchange with ticket surcharges. That was a mandatory thing put on by the NDP government at the time. The City didn’t have a thing to do with it. It could be argued that the City has been doing everything it can to shutter the Sens franchise given the hatred between the former Mayor and Melnick.
ron:
It was the harris government.
cheers
kgray
On that mayor-switching thing … we need to be careful with this so we aren’t jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I don’t know how they figure out which teams play each other during the playoffs and on up to the finals so this may not even be a possibility.
What if we ended up in the final with the New York team? My understanding of Eric Adams, the NYC mayor, is that he has a tenuous grasp on the concepts of ethics and morality. Do we really want him here? Although it would give Mark Sutcliffe the chance to run this year’s NYC Marathon, I suppose.