Actor Ryan Reynolds Expresses Interest in Purchasing the Ottawa Senators

Actor Ryan Reynolds Expresses Interest in Purchasing the Ottawa Senators
Ryan Reynolds is seen at New York Comic Con in New York City on Oct. 3, 2019. The Canadian Press/AP-Steve Luciano
David Wagner
Updated:
0:00
The Ottawa Senators is up for sale, and actor Ryan Reynolds is interested in purchasing the National Hockey League (NHL) franchise.
On Nov. 2, People magazine published a story saying a source told them that Reynolds was interested. He confirmed his interest on the “Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon less than a week later.
Senators Sports & Entertainment announced on Nov. 4 that the team is for sale, stating that a condition of the sale is that the team remains in Ottawa.

Reynolds, perhaps best known as the star of the hit comic book movie “Deadpool,” already owns Wrexham AFC, a soccer club in Wales. He bought the club with actor and producer Rob McElhenney in February 2021.

He  told Fallon that he would need a consortium to buy the team, explaining that a consortium is a group of investors.

“I need to find a partner with really deep pockets,” he said. “I need a sugar mommy or a sugar daddy.”

Sports reporting website Sportico lists the Senators as being worth US$655 million.

Reynolds said storytelling is an important part of sports because sport is driven by emotion, and since he knows storytelling it could help with building a sports team. Being the owner of Wrexham has already consumed half of his life, he said, “and the other half might be consumed by something like this,” referring to buying the Ottawa Senators.

Although he is from Vancouver, Reynolds said he spent a lot of his childhood in the Vanier neighbourhood of Ottawa.

“Children are eased out of the womb with ice skates,” he said jokingly to Fallon when talking about the importance of hockey to Canadian culture. “NHL-ready by the time they are 4.”

The Senators are one of the seven NHL teams that play out of Canadian cities. The team was reinstated in 1992 after being gone for 58 years. The original team won 11 Stanley Cup championships from 1903 to 1934, but the cup has eluded the team since 1992.