from Rick Gibbons of the Ottawa Sun,

Ottawa has settled into a deep winter freeze and, barring a Christmas miracle, it’s going to get a whole lot colder for Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk in the days ahead.

The team has slipped into the bottom of the league standings. More worrying, it’s entered the bottom third in league attendance and it threatens to slide even lower as Melnyk finds himself in an untimely, reckless scrap with his own fan base over the future of the franchise.

These days, Melnyk would probably welcome a visit from the ghost of Christmas Past, if only to remind him of a time, just a decade ago, when the team lagged behind only Montreal and Buffalo in pushing nearly 20,000 fans through the turnstiles for every single home game.

The Ghost of Christmas Present tells a much different story of angry fans and empty seats aplenty in a rink where strategically placed tarps already conceal thousands more.

continued