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There are a couple of reasons that kind of bid is highly unlikely, however.

The first is that the Senators aren’t exactly flush with cash, unless something has changed drastically in the last year or so. Owner Eugene Melnyk claims to have suffered a cumulative cash loss of $110 million operating the team, and the franchise either can’t or won’t spend on a competitive player salary budget. In a league where the top teams pony up close to $70 million, the Senators are second-last at $55.8 million (according to capgeek.com). The odds of them finding the $450 million or so needed to build a modern arena on their own seem fairly low.

Second is the fact that the Sens have already made it clear they “feel very strongly that this could only be possible with strong community support,” which, to anyone familiar with new sports infrastructure, sounds a lot like a euphemism for a handout.

The craziest part of all, though, is that there seems to be a great deal of momentum in this city behind the idea of replacing an NHL-calibre arena that was built in 1996. Even if it took 10 years to construct a new building, the Canadian Tire Centre would still be just 28 years old. It isn’t a poorly-planned dump like Rexall Place in Edmonton, built in 1974, or the New York Islanders’ 1972 Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which should have been razed long ago. A modern arena, with proper maintenance, should last at least 40 years.

I’ve covered NHL games in 13 different rinks, and I can say without reservation that the CTC stacks up well against all of them. Not only that, the Senators continue to sink millions into it for upgrades. I don’t hear Boston clamouring to replace the TD Garden (built in 1995), Vancouver to replace the Rogers Arena (1995), Montreal to replace the Bell Centre (1996) or Washington to replace the Verizon Centre (1997), and those are metropolises with populations in the multimillions.