It’s hard to build a hockey fanbase from scratch. In Ottawa, a city stuck between the two biggest hockey markets in the world with a population partly made up of people who came from other parts of the country to work for the government, the Senators of the ‘90s and ‘00s had their work cut out for them.
So how do you build a fanbase? Winning helps, obviously. So does charity work. But what really helps is getting the kids on your side. When the kids eventually become adults, all of those years of fandom will cement their loyalty to the team.