Vancouver Canucks promise to correct Heritage Classic ticket blunder

The Vancouver Canucks are doing a little damage control tonight.

In a ticket giveaway glitch, the team sent an email to every minor league hockey team that entered to win free tickets to the Heritage Classic on Sunday, telling them they were all winners.

However, that was not the case.

The Canucks then had to let the minor league teams know they could not all come to the game, leaving many kids disappointed.

Anthony Bucci is the head coach of the Abbotsford H4 Jets, a team of eight-year-old boys. His wife entered the team in the contest and they received an email back saying they had won. Bucci then had to provide them with some details and he was sent an email saying he would be notified when the tickets were ready.

That email never arrived, so Bucci called the contact number and was told due to the overwhelming number of people calling for tickets, they could only offer a limited number of tickets for each team.

However, another email soon arrived telling Bucci the Canucks had accommodated as many teams as they could, and his team would not be able to attend the Heritage Classic. Two days ago he emailed and called them about the matter, and he has not heard anything since.

As a consolation, the teams that can’t go to the Heritage Classic will get tickets to a Canucks game over the next year. There is also a practice on March 22 that some of the kids will be able to attend.

But Bucci said he has only heard about this through the media. “I think they’re still working on it,” he said.

Luckily, he did not tell the entire team they had won, so he did not have to let them all down.

“I don’t think it was handled well at all,” he said. “At least reply to the emails and calls and not let us hear about it on the news.”

When Bucci’s local AHL, team the Abbotsford Heat, heard about what happened they invited the H4 Jets to watch them play against the Canucks’ farm team, the Utica Comets, on March 15.

Bucci said he is excited about that, but the disappointment over the Heritage Classic is still there.

“It’s disappointing for everybody,” he said, “not just for me but for the kids as well.”