It’s a new season, and in many ways, a new team for a fresher, younger Vancouver Canucks squad.
But for ticket sellers, it may be the same old story: sluggish demand and slumping prices.
Coming in as 150-to-1 odds of winning the Stanley Cup, the Canucks are not expected to have a breakthrough year.
Kingsley Bailey with Vancouver Ticket and Tour Service agrees there won’t be droves of fans streaming into Rogers Arena every single game.
“I’d say there’s maybe about a half dozen games that’ll be hugely in demand,” he said, adding that pain for ticket sellers will be good news for deal-seeking fans.
“But for the majority of games, when you’re looking at getting in, a lot of first-timers will be enjoying hockey games at an affordable price.”
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The club is making the first beer free at their home opener this weekend, but Bailey hopes the team gets creative with other promotions.
“Maybe they should do that, maybe they should have more sponsorships where they can give out free stuff.”
Bailey said part of the drop in sales could be that the club didn’t show enough loyalty to fans to keep them in the ranks when times got tough.
“When they were the only game in town and very monopolistic, they didn’t care. But now they do care about their fans, and it’s a little too late because they lost a lot of fans that aren’t coming back,” he said.
“The hardest fan to get back is the one that’s walked away; they had enough.”
On the bright side, Bailey said with the injection of more youth on the roster, at the very least the on-ice product should be more entertaining than last season.