I think most people are willing to stick it out for a reasonable time. Season tickets aren’t something you commit to casually. It’s a big chunk of money and a huge time sink. People who do that are probably pretty serious about the team.
As noted above,
@caniac247 hung in there through two disappointing non-playoff years, then another 6 years that were a total disaster. Then dropped out and missed yet another disaster year. That’s just too much to expect anyone to wallow through for so long. Top tier markets can survive it, but small markets (and even some large ones) are going to reach a natural breaking point once it becomes a generational catastrophe.
This is correct. Expecting fans to continue to come out to 41 home games to watch a lousy product is going to be like expecting someone who is addicted to fatty foods to quit cold turkey. It ain't happening that fast and it's going to take some time and commitment. Maybe a bad analogy but the point is year after year of .500 isn't worth anyones time. And for anyone who says something like "Well what about the Cleveland Browns?", that's 8 home games, usually on a Sunday afternoon. 41 home games on weeknights at 7pm is a different animal.
I've been a fan of this team going back to the 1999 playoffs. I've seen the dark days. I remember the two seasons after the 2002 Cup run and the empty seats after the novelty of that run wore off. I remember before the 2005-06 season got started there was an article in the
News and Observer about how merchandise sales for team apparel were nearly non-existent. A lot of that had to do with the lockout but the team wasn't expected to be any good for awhile at that time.
But none of that compared to what this franchise endured for most of this decade because in the bad years of the 00's, they had a Cup win and deep playoff runs in-between. I remember the two win-and-you're-in home games that they blew in spectacular fashion. One they outshot the Panthers by 30 and lost to them at home for the first time in 6 years, and the other they got blown out by a Tampa team with nothing to play for. I remember the booing of the 11-12 team before Maurice got fired, the poor signing of Tomas Kaberle, the backfiring of extending Alex Semin, the constant revolving door of mediocre AHL players being given top-9 and top-4 roles, swiss-cheese goaltenders, and questionable coaching decisions.
On top of all this, the franchise for years would get off to lousy starts but after Mid-Feburary or so they'd get on a hot streak, only to finish 5-10 points out of the playoffs and screwing their draft position. Case in point the 14-15 season, no wins in October, and they're primed for McDavid. Yet they go on a hot streak around March and win a bunch of meaningless games and end up with the 5th pick. Or the two years before where they were in a playoff spot middle of the season and then went on a losing streak that f***ed them over down the stretch.
This season has been a dream. It hasn't been perfect but they've showed signs of actual life and improvement. More importantly, they actually won enough games to clinch a damn playoff spot. And really, thats all the fans really wanted out of this bunch. Of course we want to win more Cups too but getting out of 9th-place hell was a huge step in making the community fall in love with this team again.
Raleigh is an excellent market for the NHL. It's well-educated, fast growing, young, full of transplants who grew up with Hockey, and players like playing/living here. All things the NHL looks for in a non-traditional market. We just needed something to show us the fans that it wasn't going to be more of the same ole same ole.
Sorry for writing a novel here.
TLDR, Canes sucked for 10 years it wasn't fun to witness.
