There's a type of hate that's easy to love. It's the hate a downtrodden fanbase feels for a homegrown star who forced his way out, to a better or at least more glamorous situation. This hate is full and rich and multifaceted. It contains all the frustrations of decades of losing, of free agents spurning their team as a destination, of being a punchline for the rest of the league. It contains envy and resentment toward the idea that someone could just choose not to live or die with the fortunes of that benighted franchise. It contains disappointment in that departed star, for getting their hopes up and leaving them dangling. It contains a heart-tugging exasperation that gets deep into sports' very real ability to encapsulate the human condition: We loved you, it says. Why didn't you love us? Not since Long Island "welcomed" back John Tavares has there been a night of hockey hate like Brady Tkachuk's return to Ottawa on Wednesday. He may be Keith Tkachuk's garbage son, but for eight years he was Ottawa's garbage son, too, dammit.
Ottawa's easy to root for from afar. They've dealt with more shit than any fanbase should be expected to. They weathered an evil and stupid owner, and threats of relocation. They've been the butt of the joke on the ice, failing to win a playoff series in the last decade and reaching one Final in their entire existence. Everyone dumps on their town, even, accidentally, their own mayor. Players don't want to live there. If they are to have their very own superstar, they have to make one. For the Senators' drawn-out trek into and then gradually out of the wilderness, that was Brady Tkachuk.
Tkachuk makes a great bad guy. He already has the bearing and showmanship of a pro-wrestling heel, and the way he forced his way to Florida was genuinely villainous: quietly, on the mythical Team USA group chat, and publicly, on his podcast with his father and brother. (Tampering is an unenforceable rule, but it's insulting to not even try to pretend to follow it.) He's an avatar for the U.S.'s aggressive geopolitical little-brothering of Canada. He's unlikable as a person and infuriating as an opposing player. He is very fun to boo, and he is of the temperament to enjoy being booed.
Before the game, Panthers coach Paul Maurice welcomed the release of emotions. "If you’re unhappy, come unhappy," he said. "If you loved watching him play, come on to watch him play. If you’re jilted, be jilted, but bring the passion. Bring whatever it is that you feel. Don’t come mad because the guy beside you isn’t happy. That’s what hockey and pro sports are all about. Let it all fly."
Senators fans let it fly all night long:
He was booed before the game. The crowd to a person paused for a moment of silence for soldiers killed in a grass fire, and then he was immediately booed again. The arena played a tribute video for him, and it was booed. That made him break out in a shit-eating grin and raise his stick in acknowledgement and they booed more. They cheered, lustily, for the returning Lars Eller, for all of his 68 career games as a Senator—just to show that this was personal. Tkachuk was booed every single time he touched the puck. He heard cheers once, but he was horizontal on the ice for them, and they were for Artem Zub for laying him out in the corner.
Sens fans chanted, too. Buddy, did they have chants. With varying levels of venom and cleverness. "You can't read" and "You eat crayons" were very funny. "Traitor" and "Fuck you" were perhaps straightest to the point. "Brady's balding" was charmingly catty. "Fuck your podcast" was generational.
And then of course—of course!—Brady scored the game's first goal.
That fucking shrug, man; he's so good at this. It's great drama. Theater, really. Paul Maurice was right, this is what hockey's all about, and it's easy to draw a line between the sublimated bloodlust a Sens fan might feel, and what audience members hundreds of years ago were feeling as they rooted for Falstaff or Scaramouche to get their comeuppance.
While Brady may have put the Panthers on top momentarily, the Senators fans had another chant I didn't mention earlier: "We don't need you." Because they might not! Ottawa came into this game a feisty 6-3-0, good enough for playoff position in a fiercely contested Atlantic, and looking down in the standings at the star-studded Panthers. This is a good team, and playing like it. Tim Stutzle got Ottawa on the board just four minutes after Tkachuk broke the ice, and the rest of the game was all Senators. It ended 5-1 Ottawa, and the only drama remaining was whether the crowd could keep up its heckling for 60 minutes (it could) and when the obsolete Brady Tkachuk Senators jerseys would hit the ice (third period, after a scrum).
And that was that. Two more points for the Sens, and perhaps a much-needed purge of local angst.
"Were they ruthless? It was good,” Tkachuk said. “It shows the passion that they have. One chapter closed."
It felt like a turning of the page for Senators fans, too: a night to tear open old wounds one last time before letting them heal. The next chapter of Senators hockey feels it's going to be a fun one. Maybe they'll adapt it for a picture book so Brady can understand it.
