How to cheer for the Ottawa Charge: Get yourself a kazoo

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It started as a faint buzz in a corner of the arena, a scratchy hum threading through cold January air. But the humble sound had ambition. Soon it spread — warbling, nasal and relentless — echoing across sections, punctuated by chants of “Charge!”

What began as a curious and scattered commotion has snowballed into a unifying force, a soundscape that has turned strangers into a united and spirited crowd.

These aren’t just any noisemakers. The unmistakable kazoo buzz has become the unofficial rallying call at Ottawa Charge games and a symbol of the tight-knit community that has bonded over professional women’s hockey.

Well before Ottawa’s PWHL team hit the ice for their inaugural season last year, Britt Hurley and a couple dozen hockey fans banded together to purchase season tickets in Section 11 of TD Place Arena, an unassuming corner beneath the low-slung ceiling created by the overhead stands of the nearby outdoor stadium. 

Coming from various hockey leagues, varsity teams and local sports organizations, most of them didn’t know each other, but the soon-to-be Charge fans shared one thing in common: a strong connection to women’s and queer sports in Ottawa. 

“We were that little kid who was changing in the janitor’s closet because you couldn’t change with the boys or we were on the first-ever girls’ hockey team in our towns,” Hurley said. “We were the kids that were told that we don’t belong in sports growing up, but we did it anyway.”

Those common experiences brought Hurley and others into the PWHL fandom, and their season seats in Section 11 “quickly became this home away from home.” The fans, in concert with the supporter group Red Scarf Union, dedicated themselves to making Ottawa’s new cohort of professional women’s hockey players feel “loved and supported.”

A big step along the way was the arrival of a more tangible team identity this past September. After all six original PWHL franchises debuted with largely generic and uninspired uniforms for the league’s first season, each team refreshed their look with a unique nickname and logo. For Ottawa, this meant becoming the Ottawa Charge — a name that gave a spark to the burgeoning fan movement.

That spark was fanned into something bigger thanks to a brief, offhand moment from team captain Brianne Jenner. During the Charge’s name and logo reveal, Jenner was asked how the team could bring their brand to life in the arena. Without missing a beat, she hummed a familiar six-note tune: “Da-da-da DUT da DUH.” In that instant, the classic “Charge” fanfare, a sports staple for decades, took on a new, organic twist for Ottawa fans.

Erin Thompson, the Charge’s director of business operations, witnessed the captain’s spontaneous remark (which Jenner admitted she only vaguely remembers saying) grow into something larger. Although the team incorporated the fanfare into its in-game presentation for the first games of the 2024-25 season, with fans following it up by chanting “Charge!” it left much to be desired.

“It felt a bit flat with just one time,” Thompson explained. “Then, in January, we started hearing a faint hum from the stands. Fans had brought kazoos to keep the chant going.”

The “Charge” fanfare is a callback to a classic sports tradition. The original notes were written by Tommy Walker in 1946 at the University of Southern California, and in 1959 the Los Angeles Dodgers sold 20,000 toy trumpets to fans at $1.50 apiece for the same chant. But the Charge’s kazoo movement is different — it started from the grassroots.

Hurley said she and her friends realized early on that, for a brand-new professional women’s hockey team to take root in Ottawa, known as a sleepy government town, it required organic fan engagement. So, in addition to bringing the noise to every Charge home game, Hurley’s group brainstormed unique ways to further enhance the crowd atmosphere inside TD Place.

After a January home game, the season-ticket holders filed into a nearby bar and Hurley shared a gripe: that the team played the “Charge” fanfare just once instead of the standard three times. In an attempt to show their vision to their friends, Hurley mimicked a trumpet with their hands while voicing the six notes.

“I got chirped very quickly for how bad my impression was,” Hurley said, laughing. “My friend was just like, ‘What are you playing? What instrument is that? Is that a kazoo?’”

Although she received a ribbing for her imitation, the seed had been planted. Hurley and her friends quickly realized kazoos were the perfect tools to bring fans together: They were cheap, portable and easy to bring through arena security. According to its stadium and arena guide, TD Place prohibits air horns, whistles, mechanical noisemakers and powered megaphones. Though not very loud, kazoos represented an ideal workaround.

For the next Charge game, Hurley decided to pull the trigger. They purchased 36 kazoos to distribute to spectators in Section 11 and were quickly astonished by the overwhelming interest of fellow fans. Spurred on by demand, Hurley soon bought 500 more kazoos to dispense throughout the arena, while also requesting donations to Sophie’s Squad, a mental health awareness group backed by Charge forward Gabbie Hughes. 

Marie-Pier Thibault, a season-ticket holder in Section 11, was one of the first to join the kazoo craze. She noticed Hurley with a backpack overflowing with the colourful instruments and a small sign that read “free kazoos.” Word spread quickly in Section 11, and soon fans from all over the rink were visiting Hurley and her friends to pick up their own kazoos.

“You see every game that it grows,” Thibault said. “There’s more and more and more people doing it, and it’s pretty fun to know that (Jenner is) the one behind the inspiration behind the cheer.

“It shows the connection between the team itself and the fans in Ottawa is very close. We know our players, and I feel like they know us as a fandom.”

Before long, the faint buzzing of kazoos grew into a chorus that could be heard throughout the arena, to a point where players caught on. Despite the modest sound, veterans Hughes and Alexa Vasko both said they were well aware of the childhood instruments during games, and certainly the raucous “Charge!” chants that would follow. 

“I haven’t seen or heard a kazoo since I’ve been in preschool, to be honest,” Vasko said. “But, to see those brought out, I think it’s one of a kind for the Ottawa Charge, and it’s something that we can rally behind.”

Rookie forward Mannon McMahon admitted she didn’t really hear them amid all the chaos on the ice, but that was only because fans were so loud in other ways.

“We don’t really necessarily hear them because their cheering is so loud,” McMahon said. “Playing at home is such an advantage for us. 
Our fans are amazing … it’s like a seventh person on the ice for us.”

Once members of the team’s fan-engagement team became aware of it, they fully leaned into the kazoo scene, Thompson said. A kazoo giveaway was put into action for the Charge’s last regular-season home game, arming thousands of fans with the tiny noisemakers. 

After clinching its first playoff berth days later in Toronto, the Charge tipped its cap to the fans with a social media post captioned, “FIRE UP THE KAZOOS, WE’RE TAKING THE CAPITAL BY STORM!”In response, the post’s comment section was flooded with kazoo-related praises.

“It feels good to have started something that is bringing a community together,” Hurley said. “To know that that community is bigger than what I ever thought in my head has been really eye-opening.

“It’s just such a joy to hear a kazoo go off in a random section now and hear people chanting ‘Charge’ out of nowhere.”

The kazoos stand out as a unique Ottawa tradition in the sports landscape. Hurley admitted that, even though they’re “arguably the most annoying instrument,” no other PWHL fanbase could hold a candle to the unique way in which Ottawa has embraced its women’s hockey team. Whether it’s topping league attendance charts or creating the loudest building, the bond between the city and the Charge is inseparable.

“Ottawa will always be criticized as maybe not the best sports city at the professional level,” Hurley said. “But what people don’t realize about Ottawa is that our size and the diversity within it is such a strength. It becomes a tight-knit group of passionate people from all ages, gender, sexualities, backgrounds, who just want to support women’s sports.”

The players are embracing the support wholeheartedly as they prepare to host the Montreal Victoire for their PWHL semi-final playoff series.

“I think we always have a unique way of doing things here in Ottawa, on and off the ice, and to have the fans buy into that and bring their little special touch of kazoos is fun,” Hughes said.

“It’s only our group doing it, nobody else.”

While Jenner, a captain who largely leads by example, is by no means eager to take credit for the chant, she expresses gratitude toward the fanbase that she has become well-acquainted with over her two-year captaincy.

“We’re really lucky to have such a loyal fan base here and they give us a huge advantage when we’re in this building,” Jenner said. “It’s definitely something that’s pretty special.”

With Thompson confirming plans are in the works to hand out more kazoos ahead of Ottawa’s first home playoff game on Tuesday, TD Place promises to be buzzing. Hurley and plenty of other fans plan to take the next day off work so they can fully celebrate the occasion.

“It’s gonna be electric,” they said. ”I can’t even imagine because every game is electric. I don’t know how we get better than this, but I know that there’s so much excitement and so much hype.”