Oh Rick Chiarelli, what have you done?

The Ottawa City Councillor today introduced a motion to again designate Elgin Street as Sens Mile.

After a few light-hearted remarks around the council table about jinxing the team, it was unanimously passed.

It’s something the City has done for several years now, turning the stretch of sports bars, pubs and restaurants into a rallying point for avid Sens fans.

But traditionally it isn’t done until the Ottawa Senators make the playoffs.

So is invoking a playoff tradition during the regular season - while the Sens in a tight battle to even make the playoffs - a sign of faith or merely tempting fate?

For his part, Councillor Chiarelli says he wanted to acknowledge the team’s remarkable late-season rally and the record-setting play of rookie goaltender Andrew “Hamburglar” Hammond. “This is an historic streak for the team and it’s important we recognize what we’re in the middle of,” he says.

Councillor Scott Moffatt supported the motion, but not before offering some light-hearted remarks about how he wants Chiarelli alone to take the blame should things suddenly go south for the Sens. He points out that sports streaks are delicate things. “You don’t change your undershirt. You don’t clean your jock. You don’t do these things. You don’t change patterns in the middle of a streak,” says Moffatt.

Along Elgin Street, opinion on the faith vs. jinx debate was mixed. Luke Rochefort, owner of St. Louis Bar and Grill had to weigh his hockey player superstitions against his desire for the Sens Mile to boost business. “Anything that can get Elgin Street some attention and some action, I support it 100%,” he says.

One customer called City Hall’s designation “a nice vote of confidence.”

But out on the street, a passerby noted “Sports is full of superstitions and things like that, and I absolutely think City Hall should have waited.”

Can putting up a couple of street signs affect the destiny of an entire team? Well, who can really say why the Ottawa Senators have turned their game around and mounted this amazing late-season rally?

So who can really say what might end it?

The Ottawa Senators – with a tenuous hold on the 8th and final playoff spot in the NHL Eastern Conference - have ten games left in the regular season to find out.