Ottawa, You're the Best

Lore & Background

The chant grew organically out of the early 1990s, when a city starved of professional hockey for nearly four decades finally got its franchise back. The first seasons at the smaller Ottawa Civic Centre were raw, electric, and deeply personal — fans had waited since 1954, and the noise in the building reflected that pent-up hunger. As the team moved into the purpose-built Scotiabank Place in the late 1990s, the song scaled with the venue. What had been a row's shout became a full-arena percussion event: the stomp-stomp-clap rhythm, the crowd's collective bellow of the refrain, the wave of red scarves raised in unison.

The 2007 Stanley Cup run elevated the anthem from a fun ritual to a near-sacred text. In the clutch moments of that postseason, the sound of the building — that rolling, thunderous "Ottawa, you're the best" — became part of the narrative itself. Opposing teams would later describe the psychological weight of hearing it before a face-off. For the city, the Cup was validation that the song was not just cheering but prophecy.

In the years since, the chant has cycled through eras of hope and heartbreak, but the refrain never stopped. It is sung by children on their parents' shoulders, by retirees in the upper bowl, by the one-season fans who bought a ticket out of curiosity and left with a scarf. It is, in the truest sense, Ottawa's own.

In Their Own Story

The ice is fresh, the Zamboni's last pass still glistening under the arena lights. It is a Tuesday in February, and the Senators are down by one in the third period. The scoreboard is a small red rectangle in a vast sea of black and white. Then someone in the 200-level starts the stomp. One row. Two. The sound rolls down the concrete tiers like a slow wave, and by the time it reaches the lower bowl, the whole building is a single drum. A woman in a frayed red jersey, her breath fogging in the cold air, claps her hands to the rhythm and sings the words she has known since she was seven years old, pressing her forehead against the glass. The puck is in the corner. The crowd is a wall of sound. And for thirty seconds, the only thing that matters is the refrain, rolling and rolling, until the horn.

Reader's Guide

Canadian Tire Centre is a modern, single-venue arena built for hockey and major events. The seating bowl wraps tightly around the ice, keeping even upper-level fans within a few metres of the boards. The centre ice area features the Senators' shield logo, and the four corners hold the traditional glass-and-steel penalty boxes. Overhead, the jumbotron and ribbon board frame the playing surface, while the concourse levels offer local food vendors, team-store displays, and the characteristic red-and-black colour scheme that makes the building feel like an extension of the city's winter palette.

Game-day rituals are layered. Before the national anthem, fans often begin a low, building hum that swells into the full "Ottawa, You're the Best" chant. During stoppages, the stomp-stomp-clap rhythm fills the bowl, and on goals the sound erupts into a sustained roar that rivals the decibel levels of a rock concert. The 200-level and upper bowl are known for the most intense, sustained noise, and fans there often stand for the full 60 minutes.

The team's integration into Ottawa's culture is deep. Senators games are a civic event in a city of roughly one million, and the rivalry with Montreal carries the weight of a provincial identity. Local restaurants, pubs, and even the ByWard Market's shops drape red-and-black bunting around playoff time. The franchise is woven into the city's self-image in a way that few other Canadian sports teams achieve.

Did You Know?

• The Ottawa Senators' 2007 Stanley Cup victory ended a 53-year wait for a professional hockey championship in the city, a drought stretching back to the original Senators' 1954 NHL title.
• The franchise was an NHL expansion team that began play in the 1992–93 season, returning professional hockey to Ottawa after a decades-long absence.
• The rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens is one of the most storied in Canadian hockey, rooted in provincial identity and decades of competitive history dating back to the original Senators era.
• The "Ottawa, You're the Best" chant is not a single recorded song but a crowd-composed, call-and-response ritual that has evolved across multiple generations of fans while keeping its core refrain intact.