NHL Saviour?

Sydney Crosby is coming to Vancouver for the first time in his career this weekend. It’ll be on Hockey Night in Canada and the city is already buzzing about it. The buzz is exactly what I was talking about last week when I said that the NHL has made a good decision to change the schedule up and make this type of game happen in Vancouver more than once every three years. Frankly, the league should be embarrassed that it took this long for the most hyped player in a decade to play his first games in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

With Sydney coming to town, I was curious about ticket prices for the game and that of course led me to curiosity about ticket pricing and availability around the league. Hockey has clearly become a background sport in the US, relegated to spots on Sportscenter behind poker and competitive eating, and I wanted to know how that was affecting prices in traditional and non-traditional markets. To investigate, I looked at the six Canadian teams, the remaining four of the Original Six, and eight more teams from around the league who represented traditional hockey towns (i.e. – Minneapolis) and non-hockey towns (i.e. – Atlanta). I looked up availability for the teams’ next home game that will occur on a weekend.

As expected, it was far easier to get a ticket in the American cities than the Canadian ones. The New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild were the only two American teams that I could not get tickets to through Ticketmaster (or the equivalent websites being utilized by a few odd teams). The Canadian teams, however, with the exception of Ottawa, were all sold out. Interestingly, the cheap seats across all of the US markets averaged the same - roughly $20. This compared with a little more than $32 in Canadian cities. The after-market ticket prices though, followed a more expected curve. The cheapest Craigslist prices in Canada averaged $70, compared to $43 for the US Original Six cities, $39 in the traditional hockey cities, and $28 in the non-traditional markets. The highest prices seen in the after-market were also in Canada where peak prices were more than double those throughout the US.

Some of the more interesting after-market finds included seats in a suite in LA for $125 each but without the requirement to buy the whole suite, $65 seats right on the glass in Tampa, and most interestingly, free tickets to the game in Edmonton next weekend in exchange for two dates (they’re seeking one straight man and one gay man - http://edmonton.craigslist.ca/tix/499030624.html).

Finally, what are those tickets to see Sydney going for this Saturday? Well, if you were fortunate enough to get them from Ticketmaster (only possible if you are a season ticket holder with advance purchase rights), the face values ranged from $58 - $241. Craigslist has those same seats listed from $150 - $450. Maybe Sydney CAN save the league. Though perhaps this is just another Canadian city full of crazed fans who jump on and off the bandwagon, but keep buying seats whatever the cost!