LOOK: Ottawa Senators drop the ball with pregame stunt that hurts kids, spills beers
And they did it by dropping giant balls onto the crowd ... seriously
If you're the kind of person who goes to Ottawa Senators games, then you're probably used to feeling hurt.
But the Senators took it upon themselves to make that truer than ever during Thursday night's season opener.
If their offseason moves -- delayed Erik Karlsson sendoff and all -- didn't warn Ottawa faithful that 2018-19 was going to be a doozy, then their so-awkward-and-staged-that-it's-funny way of selling a rebuild to their own fan base should have. But just in case, because we all know how serious the Senators are about making things as uncomfortable as possible, the team welcomed everyone to the new season with a very special treat at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday evening.
Giant balls falling from the sky.
As Complete Hockey News documented via Twitter, the Senators apparently wanted to get fans pumped during warm-ups prior to Thursday's game against the Chicago Blackhawks, and so they decided to drop "weird, heavy beach balls" onto the crowd from the arena rafters. As others reported, the results weren't pretty: Spilled beers, injured children and "people getting whacked left and right."
The Ottawa Senators dropped weird heavy beach balls on the crowd during warmups tonight.
— Complete Hockey News (@CompleteHkyNews) October 4, 2018
The balls spilled a lot of beer and injured some children.
Photo: Kevin Lee - @BringBackLee pic.twitter.com/K4v1PsQ1q0
Little dodge ball to start at the #Sens home opener #GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/MikbsMY66c
— Bunks (@OttBunks) October 4, 2018
The #sens just released dozens of giant beach balls in the crowd. It was like a turkey shoot - people getting whacked left and right. Worst promo I’ve seen since the 67’s had a puck toss.
— Joe Goski (@joegoski) October 4, 2018
And they hurt when they get dropped from the rafters #headache https://t.co/NMYOREt9dM
— Brent Wallace (@tsn_wally) October 4, 2018
Video of the incident looks a lot like a rock concert, except with enlarged medicine balls or those bouncy yoga chairs flying from section to section. And, really, there are two ways to look at this: 1.) Why in the world would it be a good idea to have uncontrollable, giant and apparently heavy balls bouncing around a crowd when people are trying to watch a game? and 2.) Oh yeah; people don't want to watch the Senators, so this is great.
It's unclear whether the giant things kept dropping throughout the game, but if anyone weathered the ball storm until the very end, at least they got to see a Senators loss in overtime!
















