The caller ID said Hurricanes so I answered the phone. We have had season tickets with the Carolina Hurricanes since August of 2004 and I don't recall anyone from the organization calling the house. It has been a rough year both on and off the ice for the Hurricanes. I have always been vocal with my feelings about the Hurricanes with my friends and family. Occasionally I will tell my ticket rep all the things bothering me about the whole Hurricanes organization even though I know it is not his job. He is always great and lets me talk and helps when he can. Today was my chance to let someone else know how I was feeling this season and maybe the last couple of seasons. Every year we try to sell about 8-10 games if we are traveling or can't make a game. This year we have only been able to sell one game and had to take a loss on the other game we couldn't attend. It seems like this season more than in years past it seems every game has a special deal on tickets and makes it hard to compete with selling our own seats. It has also been brought to our attention that StubHub has a large amount of Hurricanes tickets on sale and some fans have been able to buy seats to a game for $2.00. My husband has been keeping track of the amount of tickets for sale online and it looks to be around 1000 for every game and almost always the same seat locations. I asked the caller today about this and he admits ticket brokers buy a lot of tickets and can sell them for whatever they want even if they take a loss on most games to make a premium on other games. They have these accounts with the team so if the team makes the playoffs they also can make a killing on those tickets. If you know anything about the Hurricanes season this year, I did laugh out loud when he mentioned playoffs. This makes me feel under appreciated as a season ticket holder and fan because we only purchase our 2 seats and the brokers purchase 1000 and never show up to a game to support the team and we are treated the same. We also talked about what other teams do for their season ticket holders and he didn't really have anything to say about how the Hurricanes measure up to other teams.
The man who called was very nice and answered what questions he could and told me he would pass my comments on. I thanked him and let him know I appreciate him and especially my season ticket rep for listening and I hope it makes some kind of difference.
I have been a hockey fan as long as I can remember and most of it was in Hartford rooting for the Whalers so in no way am I a fair weather fan. My butt is in my seat at the RBC Center for every game we can possible attend and I buy the t-shirts, sweatshirts, jerseys and everything else with the logo on it. I support the front office who do as much as they can with the little money they get to spend from the owner (that is a whole other blog about how I feel about Peter Karmanos). I would just like to feel a little more appreciation to the loyal fans who show up every game - even cold weekday games against the Islanders. I am not saying I have the answers or know what could be done but I can see a problem and don't want to worry about this small hockey market repeating the franchises fate from Hartford.
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