4 out of 5 Canadian teams did not sell out last night

[Saitama]

Well, I've been having no issues selling my surplus Jets tickets and the games I've been to this year were all looking like they were at capacity, so I don't see this as a problem in Winnipeg.

 

[Martin Skoula]

If only there was some way people would come back...

Too bad nu-NHL dislikes physical play of all sorts.

Staged fights and AHL goons aren't the answer, you can't artificially fix the physicality. You need players/teams to hate each other again. Right now they behave like coworkers at different branches of the same company, they're NHLPA members and childhood buddies before they're a Canadien or a Maple Leaf.

Grudge matches sell regardless of how good the teams are. No one really cares if a Devils goon fights an Arizona goon off a faceoff while Subban and Galchenyuk go for a beer after the game.

 

[tgoat]

There are too many games to play sadly. Not everyone have the time to go watch livesports in todays hectic world

 

[Iceman]

Why consume a bad overpriced product?

 

[Paperbagofglory]

Times are changing, people save money by staying at home and just watching the game. Not to sound like the cliche back in my day guy, but back in my day not all games were on TV. You were lucky if a quarter of the games were televised, and another quarter of them were on Pay per view that you had to shell out 10 bucks to watch, still was a cheaper alternative than tickets. But with so few games televised you had no choice but to watch live. Not to stray into different sports but i remember a time when local CFL games were blacked out every so often.

Sports have also reached a peak in how much you can gouge the customers, the NHL is discovering that even with the loyal fan bases there is a limit. I noticed an odd comment on the Oilers game on Saturday. The sportsnet commentators were basically peddling Oilers tickets for the upcoming Edmonton home game vs Philly. They were saying plenty of tickets still available, get yours now! It was odd to me to see a popular team like Philly coming into town in 4 days and apparently a huge amount of seats were still available. Ive never once heard the Sportsnet guys trying to peddle an upcoming game by suggesting you should buy a ticket. Sure i have heard of them telling you to tune into the game all the time. I thought that was really odd.

Maybe i am reading too much into it? But after reading this thread i am starting to think there is more to it.

 

[sandysan]

How are revenues for those non sell out teams?

When banks start taking ticket Stubbs as deposits, maybe then I'll worry.

Maybe.

 

[leaffaninvancouver]

I wouldn’t read too much into this. We just had a long weekend.

 

[Beville]

The NHL is happy with Melnyk though.

No problems here.

And he is the exact reason no one wants to watch a Sens game.

 

[Pyrophorus]

TSX near all-time high though, so is this really true?

In AB with so much dependency on oil, it is tough.
In the East not so much, they're benefiting from jobs being created.

 

[Pyrophorus]

It’s the way the wind is blowing in all of Canada. There’s a shift in demographics and I see soccer and basketball rising as years go by. I could probably write a newspaper article on what I think about this subject, but I’ll spare everyone tonight.

Now this, could be economic. Hockey is becoming the rich guys sport.
Its tough to pay for equipment, leagues, etc. Soccer can be played just about anywhere
Basketball, there are hoops and backboards around.
Its been a long time, since I've even seen a road hockey game.

On Topic: Toronto could have easily been one of the rest. The last time they didn't sell out
was against the Wild.

 

[Zenos]

I actually think this speaks to an even bigger issue. I think sports in general are seeing an overall decline. Cable cutters are hurting tv viewership. Millennials aren’t interested in attending expensive and time consuming games with so many other cheaper entertainment options (i.e. Netflix).

It’s the way the wind is blowing in all of Canada. There’s a shift in demographics and I see soccer and basketball rising as years go by. I could probably write a newspaper article on what I think about this subject, but I’ll spare everyone tonight.

I certainly agree with your first point. Well, at least the expensive part of it. I fall into the tail-end of that segment (millennial), and even as a no-kids person with a good job, etc. I couldn't justify the insane costs of going to games regularily. I feel like the price of NHL tickets has inflated so astronomically in the last 15 years. I just checked and the cheapest (non-secondary market) ticket for the next Oilers home game is $65. Thats 3x what you paid at the beginning of this century.

Meanwhile, real incomes in comparison to cost of living (which is particularly troubling in Toronto and Vancouver) are down. So it's no surprise that people are reaching a limit.

That being said, I feel like this is all cyclical anyways. Anyone old enough to recall the NHL in the 90's remembers that automatic sellouts weren't always the norm. Edmonton had seasons of under 14 000 average attendance. Same with Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Ottawa.

Which is why I'm not entirely convinced however, that this is necessarily a demographic shift away from hockey and towards soccer and basketball. It certainly could be, but the "evidence" so far seems more anecdotal than anything concrete.

 

[Omark]

Before we analyse lose of interest we need to look at ticket prices first. Even world championship games were not sold out in Finland when cheapest Finland - Kazakstan ticket cost 154€. There is a limit people are willing to pay. I guess it's good econony wise to set prices so high that games are not 100% sold out. At least in short term. Long term it is questionable.

 

[KnockHobbler]

Eh Tuesday nights after thanksgiving are anomolous

 

[SenzZen]

Meanwhile, down in Mom’s basement:

 

[IceManCat]

To make it fair , how many Americans teams sold out ?

 

[Beukeboom]

100 dollars to see a game without any intensity, hits, animosity, fights, chirping etc. Just back and forth between line ups filled with unknown europeans. Unless you get a 5-4 game, it's pretty boring.

NHL has taken the emotion out, and we now have an ALL Star style kind of game, but without the big names.

Add of course the fact that many Canadian teams have struggled. They can lose 0-5 at home without sending any kind of message.

 

[BCShark]

100 dollars to see a game without any intensity, hits, animosity, fights, chirping etc. Just back and forth between line ups filled with unknown europeans. Unless you get a 5-4 game, it's pretty boring.

NHL has taken the emotion out, and we now have an ALL Star style kind of game, but without the big names.

Add of course the fact that many Canadian teams have struggled. They can lose 0-5 at home without sending any kind of message.

i agree with this over economic or calendar reasons. you can only water down the game so much before the grassroot fans start to leave.

 

[Garnet76]

So the Habs still had 20k fans at the game. No worries there. The economy overall in canada is very strong. The strongest in 20+ years. Sure there are issues in alberta but that issue is because of a non diversified economy and a poor government during the boom.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Why pay so much money for tickets, watered down (expensive ) beer and crap snacks, when you can sit at home and watch it on 4D widescreen TV? Same reason why so many theaters had to change the moviegoing experience in the past decade...it's just too easy to forget about the crowds, the cost, and the snow, and stay at home.

 

[MXD]

20500 people is a sellout in, what, 29 rinks out of 31?

 

[Shakey Rustie]

There is also currently a state of emergency in Manitoba.

 

[Eisen]

Before we analyse lose of interest we need to look at ticket prices first. Even world championship games were not sold out in Finland when cheapest Finland - Kazakstan ticket cost 154€. There is a limit people are willing to pay. I guess it's good econony wise to set prices so high that games are not 100% sold out. At least in short term. Long term it is questionable.

That price is absolutely bonkers. If they want empty stadiums that's the way to go.

 

[Cotton]

To make it fair , how many Americans teams sold out ?

It's just Ken Campbell being Ken Campbell, even in the thread of his tweet he's getting called out.

He's an example of shit media actively looking to start drama.

 

[Warden of the North]

Montreal is surprising to me. The rest I can see for various reasons (some hockey related some economics)

 

[MXD]

Montreal is surprising to me. The rest I can see for various reasons (some hockey related some economics)

There's some apathy around the team (as it is), and frankly, that crowd would've been a sellout in almost every other rink.