With new branding in place, the Ottawa Senators are looking to attract more female fans and engage the region’s francophone communities. At a media event last month, Peter Shier, vice-president of marketing for the Senators, presented the new branding: “The Hill We Choose,” or “Le Sommet Que Nous Choisissons.” Speaking to OBJ this week, he […]
Get Instant Access to This Article
Become an Ottawa Business Journal Insider and get immediate access to all of our Insider-only content and much more.
With new branding in place, the Ottawa Senators are looking to attract more female fans and engage the region’s francophone communities.
At a media event last month, Peter Shier, vice-president of marketing for the Senators, presented the new branding: “The Hill We Choose,” or “Le Sommet Que Nous Choisissons.”
Speaking to OBJ this week, he said the brand is indicative of what the 2026 Senators stand for.
“That becomes our rallying cry, hopefully for this season and beyond. It’s an interesting thing with brand platforms … ‘The Hill’ refers to both the Gatineau Hills and Parliament Hill. ‘We’ is the inclusive part. We wanted everybody included in this and that includes our fans, our players, our sponsors, everybody in this organization, to get behind it. And then the ‘choose’ part is simply something that we believe is true about Ottawa. People that are here choose to be here, stay here, set up their lives and careers here.”
It’s a sentiment embodied by some of the team’s top players, Shier said.
“Drake Batherson is a great proof point to that. He signs an eight-year contract. He’s basically going to play his whole career here and he loves it. And we chose Thomas Chabot to be our captain, but he chose Ottawa many years ago. His wife and now daughter choose to live here.”
Still, coming up with the right branding was its own hill to climb, Shier added.
“These things become difficult sometimes when you have to put parameters around them. In our case, it needed to be adaptable in English and French, it needed to appeal to both Ottawa and Gatineau and it had to appeal to fans, players, corporate partners. As soon as you put those qualifiers against it, it becomes much more difficult to come up with something that resonates.”
Work on the new branding started six to eight months ago following conversations with fans and other stakeholders.
“We tried to hear as many voices as we could to incorporate this. We didn’t want it to feel as though it was being shoved down people’s throats or anything … Brand platforms are built on truths and we believe this is built off a truth about the people choosing to be in Ottawa,” Shier said, adding that the team worked with local advertising agency Acart Communications.
It was the perfect time to establish a new brand platform as the Senators evolve to a new era in the team’s history, he said.
“I think the ownership group has been in place for two or three years and it was an opportunity to turn the page and say, ‘This is what the new Senators stand for.’”
The team will also keep part of its marketing plan open for surprises and scrappy tactics, especially after the success of the on-the-fly Heated Rivalry promotion last season. Responding to the success of Crave’s hockey romance show, the team made and sold Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander Senators jerseys.
“Those are the best,” Shier said of such ideas. “It’s like lightning in a bottle, where something gets dropped in your lap, like Heated Rivalry did for us last year, and you take advantage of it … We’re in the entertainment business. We need to continually upgrade and innovate and create new experiences for the fans.
“It taught us to be bold. I won’t say (it was) risky, because it really wasn’t. It was a really simple idea but it was well-executed and bold.”
Since he took over the team, Michael Andlauer, owner of the Ottawa Senators, has been vocal about including the Gatineau and Outaouais communities in the Senators’ marketing efforts. Shier said those efforts are continuing.
“Mr. Andlauer has been pushing us all to think broadly about things like that. That’s why you’re seeing certainly more activity in social merchandising. We don’t want to just pay lip service. We want to action it. We’re sponsoring some hockey teams and rinks in Gatineau … Why it’s important is simply that they’re a part of this region. There are a lot of Sens fans in Gatineau, so we need to give them a reason to cheer for us.”
French is appearing on more of the Senators’ merchandising, such as a t-shirt that reads, “Traduis ça: Go Sens Go!” (“Translate this: Go Sens Go!”), an apparent poke at a recent STM bus controversy in Montreal in which the Office québécois de la langue française pressured the transit authority to translate the word ‘go.’
The Senators will also be adding more merchandise targeted to women, an audience that seems to be increasing. According to NHL data, viewership during the 2026 playoffs was up 55 per cent compared to the yearly average, the bulk of which (30 per cent) was driven by female viewers.
When asked how much of its current retail revenue currently comes from a female demographic, Shier said, “Suffice it to say, it’s too low.”
“The female demographic, not just (in Ottawa) but across the NHL, is huge. Obviously, Heated Rivalry played a big part in that. We’re seeing a lot of viewership has increased in that demographic exponentially, so it’s a huge growth opportunity for the NHL and for us.”
Improving the fan experience is another priority as the team goes into the 2026-27 season, Shier said, adding that the entire organization will go through “training and development around improving the fan experience at the CTC and beyond.”
“Everybody in the organization is going through it, from the president to our partners at Aramark and Indigo, the parking folks. We can’t control what happens on the ice as the back office people but we can control the experience. No matter what happens on the ice, we can make sure people have a good time, enjoy themselves and are taken care of and their needs are met.”
Fan experience is behind the launch of a new bus shuttle program this season.
“It’s no secret that sometimes getting to the games in Kanata can be a bit of a trek, so (the shuttle bus program) is a bit of a reaction to what our fans were asking us to help them with,” Shier said. “Mr. Andlauer is big on that. The fans drive this for us. They’re the ones in charge. They’re the ones that pay the players’ salaries. What do they want? How do we support that?”
The program, dubbed the “Sens Army Express,” will see buses going to eight bars around Ottawa and Gatineau 90 minutes before a home game to pick up fans who have booked a spot on the Ottawa Senators app. Thirty minutes after the game, the bus will bring fans back to where they were picked up.
The full list of participating bars has not been announced, but the Senators ran the shuttle from four bars for a recent pre-season game: Local Heroes on Clyde Avenue, Liam Maguire’s on St. Laurent Boulevard, Lieutenant’s Pump on Elgin Street, and Thirsty Moose on Bridget Street.
In addition to answering fans’ needs, Shier said the program will alleviate traffic in and out of the CTC on game days and, hopefully, bring more pre- and post-game business to participating bars.
In the off-season, the Senators upgraded the 30-year-old Kanata facility to upgrade food and beverage offerings as well as add a new fan deck at the 300-level. Those recent investments indicate that the Senators want to take care of what they have today before looking to where they will be in the coming years, Shier said.
“Mr. Andlauer has been very clear about this. Just because we’re investing in an arena downtown in a few years and building something doesn’t mean we’re going to neglect where we are today. We’ve put more money into the building this year than any other year since it’s been built. That demonstrates the commitment we have to our existing facility and … it doesn’t negate anything we’re going to do in the future.
“It sets us up for the future too, because fandom can be a prickly thing. People are on and off the bus, so to speak. What we want to do is build life-long fans. That starts today but we hope it continues for the next however many years it takes before the new arena is built.”
