Yandle Calls Senators Fans Disgusting for Booing Tkachuk Tribute as Stutzle Chef Joke Lands

TL;DR: Keith Yandle called Ottawa fans “a little disgusting” for booing Brady Tkachuk’s tribute video on Thursday’s Spittin’ Chiclets, and co-host Paul Bissonnette told him to “shut up”. Yandle also read Tim Stutzle’s explanation for skipping a pre-game dinner with Tkachuk, “I have a chef at home”, as a polite way of saying he was never invited. Stutzle has not said that, and nobody outside the dinner group knows who was invited.

The return game was Wednesday. The argument about it is still going, and it moved from the arena to the podcast studio, which is where hockey arguments go when the game itself is over. Yandle picked the side of the player. His co-hosts picked the side of the crowd. Stutzle, who did not pick either side in public, accidentally gave the whole saga its best line.

What did Yandle say about the tribute?

He did not soften it. The welcome-back video highlighted Tkachuk’s community work over eight seasons in Ottawa, and the sellout crowd of 17,010 booed so loudly that, in Markerzone’s account, nobody could hear it. Yandle’s verdict on Thursday’s Spittin’ Chiclets was blunt: “I thought it was a little disgusting that they booed while they were giving him the ceremony on TV.”

That is a strong word for a crowd reaction, and Yandle’s co-hosts treated it that way. Bissonnette told him to “shut up”, and Ryan Whitney did not side with him either. House of Hockey’s account makes the split clear: Yandle is in the minority here, because when a team honors a player who left on bad terms, the fans get a vote too, and Ottawa used it loudly.

Yandle’s position is not mysterious. He is a close friend of the Tkachuk family, and he watched a tribute for a former captain get drowned out. The counter-position is not mysterious either. A tribute is a ceremony, and a crowd that feels betrayed is not obliged to observe it quietly. The full account of the return night shows how far that feeling went: boos in warmups, chants through the game, altered jerseys, and jerseys thrown onto the ice.

What is the Stutzle dinner story?

It starts the night before the game. Several former teammates had dinner with Tkachuk on Tuesday, and Stutzle was not among them. Asked about it at Wednesday’s morning skate, the Senators centre gave an answer that was short, sly, and immediately viral: “I haven’t seen him. I mean, I have a chef at home, so I didn’t go for dinner. Yeah, but I didn’t see him.”

On Thursday’s podcast, Yandle translated that line into something Stutzle never said. “AKA, I wasn’t invited,” Yandle said. He added that he was “honestly shocked hearing how many guys went to dinner and how hard they played against each other”, a reference to the physical game that followed.

That translation needs to be handled carefully, because it is the part of this story most likely to be repeated as fact. Stutzle said he has a chef at home. He did not say he was not invited, and nobody outside the dinner group has confirmed the guest list. Markerzone is explicit on the point: nobody outside that group knows who got an invite. Yandle’s reading is plausible dressing-room logic, and it is also, at this stage, only a reading.

Who was at the dinner, and who was not?

As many as 10 Senators attended, according to Markerzone, including Jake Sanderson, who organized it, and Drake Batherson. Yardbarker adds a piece of context that makes the absence harder to read as a simple scheduling clash: Stutzle and Thomas Chabot had previously expressed frustration about Tkachuk’s exit.

Whitney added fuel on the podcast, too. “I believe at one point Stutzle and Brady were close and even lived together,” he said. “You can tell there’s zero love lost there.” That is Whitney’s observation, not a confirmed falling-out, but it fits the pattern of the week: a captain leaves, the dressing room splits into those who kept the relationship and those who did not, and a joke about a chef becomes the public shorthand for the split.

The chef himself then joined in. Stutzle’s personal chef, Michael Hauschild, wrote on Instagram after the game: “Brady Tkachuk, you should have had me cook for you too.” It was a joke, and it worked because Stutzle’s line had already done the setup work. A player who skips dinner because he has a chef at home, then watches his chef roast the absent guest online, has turned a private decision into a public punchline without saying another word about it.

What happened on the ice?

Ottawa won the argument that mattered most, the game, 5-1. Tkachuk scored the opening goal, and Stutzle tied it on the power play before Ottawa scored twice in each of the last two periods. Stutzle finished with a goal and an assist, which meant his night did not need the dinner to be a success. The night’s third-period scrum had its own aftermath, with maximum fines for Matthew Tkachuk and Nick Cousins announced the next day.

That result is why the podcast row feels different from a simple media spat. The crowd booed, the player scored, the team he left won anyway, and the player who skipped dinner outplayed him on the night. Every side of the story got something to point to, which is why none of them have let it go.

Both teams then came back to earth on Thursday. Ottawa lost 6-2 to San Jose, and Florida lost 4-0 in Pittsburgh. The return night now sits in the record as a one-off: a sellout, a booed tribute, a 5-1 home win, and a podcast argument that outlasted both teams’ next games.

Why does this row matter beyond one podcast?

Because it tests a simple question about how fans are supposed to treat a player who leaves. Yandle’s answer is that a tribute is a ceremony, and booing through it is ugly no matter how the player left. Bissonnette’s answer, delivered as a two-word dismissal, is that fans who paid for tickets and spent eight seasons following a captain are entitled to their verdict, and a television ceremony does not override it.

There is no league ruling coming on this, and no apology expected from either side. The next scheduled meeting is November 25 in Florida, and if there is a dinner before that one, everybody will be checking the guest list, as Markerzone puts it. Until then, the story lives in three lines that will be quoted back at all three men: Yandle’s “disgusting”, Bissonnette’s “shut up”, and Stutzle’s “I have a chef at home”.

For readers following the wider Senators picture, the return night also sits inside a week of Ottawa change, from Thomas Chabot being out and Jake Sanderson returning on the same night to the Senators’ earlier two-goals-disallowed shootout win. The Tkachuk saga is the loudest thread in that week, but it is not the only one, and the November rematch will be played by two teams whose seasons will have moved on considerably by then.