The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Remember when Rod Bryden would hold a press conference and beg, PLEAD the Ottawa fans and business community to buy Ottawa Senators tickets to keep the team in town? That was about 4-5 years ago. This year, owner Eugene Melnyk made the bold prediction that every Sens game would be a sellout this season. Easy to see why: Ottawa just came off their best season and the bandwagon is filling up. No problem selling tickets.

So when I got in touch with some friends to look into getting a 20 ticket "flex package", where you buy 20 vouchers and redeem them for games as you like, well, it isn't as easy as it first appears.

Between us, we wanted to see Detroit, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Montreal amongst others. All of these games are in "group C", where out of 20 tickets, the Senators will allow you to use only 4 of your vouchers towards them.

So when the account manager from the Sens emailed me asking why I haven't responded, I told him there's too many restricted games we want to see, so we'll take a pass. "Let me see what I can do" was the response, and asked me for my game selection. So I sent it in: 1/2 the vouchers would be used for the restricted games, including a pair for Toronto, Montreal and Pittsburgh and four for Detroit. I didn't think they'd go for it, but since Toronto is the money game for the Sens, the fact I only asked for two for the Leafs might make my request reasonable. "Looks good", was the email answer, "I'll contact you Tuesday".

Well, that's today. And the email read "you've pick too many games from this section...can I suggest switching this, this and this...". Boo! I wrote him back, stating you shouldn't have told me my games list "looks good" and then tell me to change my choices. If it was no good in the first place, just say that. So I won't be getting a ticket package. If I'm plucking down several hundred dollars for tickets, I'd like to pay for games I want to see.

So anyway, with the ticket demand high, no need to bend over backwards for the customer anymore. Five years ago I bet Bryden would have hand-delivered the stubs himself. But now that every game is going to be a sellout like Melnyk thinks it will, there' s no need to take my money when it can come elsewhere.