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Fans and the hockey club grow weary of the topic.

Yet, the attendance issue of the Ottawa Senators is not something we can just tarp over and forget. Last spring, during the Senators spectacular run to the Eastern Conference final, Ottawa’s attendance became a national story and is likely to become one again this season, judging by the soft sales for the first two home games of the season, Thursday against the Washington Capitals and Saturday versus the Detroit Red Wings.

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For a better sense of the problem, the Citizen consulted NHL insiders with intimate knowledge of the Ottawa market. There are very real challenges in this marketplace, including these top factors:

Lack of a strong corporate base

This is a biggie. Ottawa’s smallish business sector serves to diminish the impact of a regional population of 1.4 million. Professional sports leagues like the NHL use a model to assess potential corporate supporters — companies with at least $5 million in sales and 25 employees are considered able to afford NHL season tickets. On this basis, Ottawa is the smallest corporate entity in the league with about 900 suitable businesses. Winnipeg, by comparison, has more than 1,700 companies from which to draw, a source says.