How does the Senators organization honour veteran defenceman Chris Phillips before his 1,000th career NHL game tomorrow night? By painting black fours on the Scotiabank Place ice behind each of the nets and posting the worst photo imaginable photo of Ottawa’s assistant captain on the main page of their website. (Featured above.)
Between Phillips’ 1000th career game, Carrie Underwood (search engine optimization! Let the traffic pour in from the Google searches!) and Mike Fisher returning for Fish’s first game back in Ottawa, it should be quite the sugary night in the nation’s capital.
New Season Ticket Iniative
Through a press release, the Senators have revealed their intent to season ticket holders. As part of an aggressive marketing plan, more than 40 per cent of season seats at Scotiabank Place will be reduced in price for the 2012-13 season to enable a broader range of fans the opportunity to purchase them. According to the release, depending on the seats obviously, this reduction in price could go as high as 52-percent.
Per the release, under this new pricing strategy, 1,238 season seats will be available to fans at prices of $20 or less, more than double the 556 seats available in this price range during 2011-12.
Although Cyril Leeder indicates that the intent of such a plan is to grow this year’s season ticket holder number from 11,300 to 13,000, let’s be honest, without an All-Star Game to dangle as enticement for renewing tickets to watch a rebuilding team, the organization had to develop some way to attract more fans to ScotiaBank Place.
Thanks to the location of the rink, HD television and almost every broadcast being made available (legally or illegally streamed), the Senators organization has to work to sell fans on the benefits of the live NHL experience. Hopefully in the best case scenario, this new ticket initiative will allow the organization to broaden its appeal and make it more economically viable for first generation fans to get their season tickets.
Perhaps most importantly, Ken Warren (@citizenkwarren) reported that Daniel Alfredsson is featured prominently in Senators posters promoting 2012-13 season ticket campaign….
From the Pressbox to the First Line
According to Le Droit’s Sylvain St-Laurent (@syl_st_laurent), Bobby Butler was skating on a line with Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek today at practice. The other lines include Kyle Turris skating between Daniel Alfredsson and Colin Greening. Paul MacLean has reunited the once effective Kaspars Daugavins, Zack Smith and Erik Condra trio. The final line consists of Nick Foligno, Zenon Konopka and Chris Neil.
67’s Will Play at SBP For Next Two Years
Per Aedan Helmer of the Ottawa Sun, Ottawa 67’s owner Jeff Hunt confirmed the team will spend the next two seasons sharing Scotiabank Place with the Senators while the Civic Centre and Lansdowne Park undergo a massive reconstruction.
Although the team has played a fair share of games at the Bank, one has to wonder how this will affect their attendance. Albeit, given the circumstances, it’s not like the 67’s had any choice on where to play in interim. Nevertheless, the distance to travel to watch NHL games has always been labeled as an inconvenience for many hockey fans who live east of Nepean, so how many fans be willing to make the commute to Kanata to watch junior hockey?
That’s the big question…
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