sounds like something the “struggling” sun-belt teams do. but if Canadian teams do it, i guess it’s ok.

Posted by Predneck from Hicktown on 12/17/09 at 12:43 PM ET

Would the Sens brass mind sending an email, fax, phone call, smoke signals, Morse code, telegraph, instructional marketing dvd, and brick with a note tied to it to the Avs brass?  It would be preferable if the brick hit the Avs brass in the head, but we’ll take what we can get.

Lowering prices?!  Free parking?!  That’s so crazy that it just might work!

Posted by AvsRock from My timeshare in insanity... on 12/17/09 at 01:25 PM ET

@Predneck: Show me the sunbelt team with an average ticket price within $10 of Ottawa’s, and you might have a case to make.

Unfortunately, the reality is that many sunbelt teams have average prices that are 20 bucks south of Ottawa’s, and they’d kill to be drawing 17,000 a night.

Posted by Josh from Whitehorse, Yukon on 12/17/09 at 03:48 PM ET

Someone send this to the Lake Erie Monsters top brass. Their tickets are $44/26/17 for AHL and they bring in about 2k a night in a 20k seat arena.

Posted by redxblack from Akron Ohio on 12/17/09 at 07:02 PM ET

@Predneck: Show me the sunbelt team with an average ticket price within $10 of Ottawa’s, and you might have a case to make.
Unfortunately, the reality is that many sunbelt teams have average prices that are 20 bucks south of Ottawa’s, and they’d kill to be drawing 17,000 a night.

As is the case when many Canadian fans offer opinions about sunbelt teams they are wrong on the facts. Every sunbelt team but two are within $10 of Ottawa ( all are within $11), six teams are within $5 of them. While one exceeds Ottawa. Yes, it is the Florida Panthers.

NHL Teams Avg. price *

Florida $52.61
Ottawa $48.82
Atlanta $48.51
Los Angeles $47.20  
Nashville $47.22
Anaheim $43.50  
San Jose $43.07  
Tampa Bay $42.41
Carolina $38.38
Dallas $37.80
Phoenix $37.45

Oh by the way San Jose averages 17,552.1 through 14 games this season.
 

*From the Rink Website

Posted by Timbits on 12/17/09 at 11:16 PM ET

http://www.andrewsstarspage.com/index.php/site/comments/nhl_average_ticket_prices_since_1994_95/119-2008-09

Interesting, because I see 12 teams above the $50 mark right now and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh would be the ones that are furthest south.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

And as for attendance, I’m seeing the Sharks, Stars and Kings with respectable totals among sunbelt teams. Then things drop off significantly.

Try again.

Posted by Josh on 12/17/09 at 11:33 PM ET

And just for the fun of it, let’s try this one other way:
Every<i>Phoenix game for the next while can be had on Stubhub for less than $20, except one game against the Wild on January 16. The lowest price on that one? $20 even.

Meanwhile, I could watch the Sens play at Atlanta on January 12 for <i>$8.

Every single Panthers home game looks to be available for $10 or less. The Panthers @ Thrashers on February 2 is going for three dollars. I defy you to find an all-Canadian matchup going for ten times that.

Go down the list… there’s not a Tampa Bay home game that you can’t see for $15, max. In Dallas (one of the sunbelt’s “sucess” stories), the highest floor I can find on a Stars home game is $24 (to see Detroit, widely acknowledged as among the best US road draws in the league), which is the lowest floor I’m seeing for Ottawa.

I’m all in favour of southern franchises… when they work. I watch games from Dallas, and the atmosphere looks great. It seems like San Jose is totally solid and stable (though I’m waiting to see how fans there react to a truly lousy team one of these years…). I would love to see these franchises succeed. But the fact is, Quebec City was given 16 seasons of (largely) truly brutal hockey, and then had the rug pulled out from under them. Phoenix is at 13 years and counting of probably comparably lousy hockey for the most part. Let’s see when their team gets yanked from them.

Posted by Josh from Whitehorse, Yukon on 12/17/09 at 11:48 PM ET