Update: The user described himself to me as a fan and resident of the city who uses Twitter to “disagree with the echo chamber”. He did not want to share additional information.

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A few weeks ago a hockey media friend made note of an odd Twitter account that had emerged in December of 2017. The account was created to yell at a fan for not understanding how an AHL paper transaction worked. The team had assigned a few players back to the Belleville Senators (edIt: incorrectly put Binghamton here previously), Ottawa’s AHL affiliate for the Christmas break. (The plan was to re-assign them back to Ottawa once the break concluded.)

The person wasn’t tweeting to his followers, though. He had simply replied to a tweet from Ottawa’s media/comms account, which is really only utilized for official team releases. The people who follow it tend to be media people, die hard fans, and the like. Anyways, the person was wrong, and so this account decided to correct them.

Now, anyone who spends five minutes looking at the Twitter profile here can realize this is a second account, which is surprisingly common on Twitter. The person auto-followed a bunch of super-celebrity accounts when the account was first created, and has since then only followed (a) people from Barstool Sports, which I can’t reconcile at all; and (b) people in and around the Ottawa Senators organization. But the person doesn’t interact with anyone that he follows. Nor does the person tweet to his followers, perhaps because they don’t exist. Six months, zero tweets.

But 276 tweets total, all of which consist of moving into conversations taking place between people in the Ottawa hockey community. It’s a curious pattern because many of these conversations are being had between people who really don’t have a lot of followers, and share no commonality other than being hardcore Ottawa fans who have opinions on, well, everything. The account was clearly designed to shadow conversations between these people, though the account doesn’t actually follow any of them.

Whoever it is, the person is pretty entrenched within the Ottawa hockey community. And they know an awful lot about the team. Ottawa has a sizable fan base but I think it’s fair to say that the size of their fan base that actively reads, reviews, and reacts to the most mundane stories within the organization and it’s AHL affiliate is pretty small. I have no idea who is behind the account, but the number of people who could be is probably considerably smaller than what we think.

Anyways, let’s talk about the material on the account. The tweets follow a common theme:

1. They only tweet about the Ottawa Senators and their AHL affiliate

2. They are particularly supportive of the decision makers in the organization

The second point branches off into a bunch of sub-points. The person is extremely supportive of the team’s general manager as one example. Here is what he or she has to say there:

Anyways, you get the point. It goes on and on and on. I can’t possibly compile even half of the material related to the front office – about half of the tweets published are dedicated to their work.



The second most common theme? Staunch defense of decisions made by the Ottawa Senators over the past few years. Some of the arguments go back as far as 2011, like when the person became aggrieved at a discussion over Mark Scheifele, Sean Couturier, and Mika Zibanejad:

To be sure, he’s not a big Zibanejad fan. He made this clear a few times on his page:

He also liked the trade for Alex Burrows. The one that shipped prospect Jonathan Dahlen over to Vancouver last season:

Then there was this one-off defense of winger Magnus Paajarvi tweeted back in March. There, he believed the player should be awarded an extension.

..and Nick Shore, who was acquired in the larger Dion Phaneuf trade and then re-packaged over to Calgary. Yes, Nick Shore. Here’s a sampling:

The person shares an awful lot of thoughts about Erik Karlsson. There are way too many of the tweets to capture, but the theme is: (a) He was the primary reason they were bad last year; (b) The team can offer him a ton of money or money is not an issue; © The team wants to sign him, but the onus of the extension is actually on the player. It started here, which was actually the first tweet he published after that random complaint about the AHL paper transaction.

..and has since evolved.

Months ago, he knew Karlsson was interested in signing. First hand, whatever that may mean:

Wonder if that has changed since.

Then there’s Mike Hoffman. The person doesn’t love Mike Hoffman’s game and believes him to be a complementary player. This started back on January 11th, when he said that any Hoffman trade made would have nothing to do with salary/money.

Speaking of money – the person pointed out to a fan tweeting into an abyss of 96 followers that he was wrong about the point he was making about Clarke MacArthur’s contract being an issue, because that contract was insured. (He is correct, again.)

Much like the departed Zibanejad, the person’s not a fan of Kyle Turris either:

And if the person is a fan of the team, he sure as hell doesn’t seem to like the rest of the fan base.

Lastly, they love Brady Tkachuk. I mean love the guy. (He is good!)

Anyways, not sure I have ever seen anything like this before. Someone created an alternate account to defend Ottawa’s honor at all costs. And they sure as hell seem to know what they are talking about – you may or may not agree with his opinions, but the statements of fact all check out – from MacArthur’s insured contract to Belleville organizational structure and so on. Whoever it is, you have to admire the consistency and dedication. I truly have no idea who it could be.

If it’s a fan, I’ll be damned if they aren’t the biggest Ottawa Senators fan on the planet, though I hope they argue with me and everyone else on their real account at some point down the road.

If it’s not a fan, then I’m even more confused.