Are Fans Finally Fed Up with Lousy Leafs?

They’ve actually been doing a lot of things to sell tickets this year. They created the last minute tickets club to sell tickets to games like the ones against the Blue Jackets, Islanders, and Thrashers. Over Christmas they were actually advertising single game, single ticket packages in case “you’re a lone wolf” that would get you a drink, a hot dog, and your ticket.

A friend of a blogger (can’t remember which) actually sold his season tickets and used the money to travel.

With the new requirement to have a 20% non-refundable deposit I can see a lot more movement this year in season tickets than before (last year saw just over 20 seats changing hands).

But, and it comes back to the big issue that anti-Leafs can’t understand, the Leafs have a massive fanbase. They might have to work a bit harder but when your pool of potential customers is so large you’ll be able to find people to buy the tickets.

Sure, this year has been tough but things will be good again and then those that opt out now will want back in. Staying in the system is a downpayment on access when les bonne temps roule encore.

I link to the Star every time I write an NNN.

The funny thing, I’m the most optimistic about the Leafs in a long time. Finally they seem to have a plan, finally they appear to truly want to win. Making the playoffs is great, lord knows I miss playoff games, and you can’t win the Cup unless you do, but just making the playoffs was our only goal for too long.

From the early 90s to early 00s we had some great teams, and some teams that could have won it all, but a lot of that was a couple shrewd (lucky?) moves to rip off other GMs, and our money. Development wise we’ve been poor for so long, that I don’t know when we were good. I think this new era gives me hope because the Leaf organization as a whole should become top notch because of it.

Besides, the true Leaf fans aren’t the ones filling the building every night (though no doubt some of them are true fans). The true Leaf fans are the ones that fill other buildings when the Leafs are the visitors.

They played the Islanders and Tampa Bay. Who really cares about seeing them. I saw on a scalper site I go to, they were selling purples for $45. When do you ever see that. If there are 1500 empty seats when they play Ottawa, Philly, or any other team people care about ( I didnt mention the Habs as they are guaranteed sell out) then time to be worried.

So help me, if guys in the media like Cox and Berger starts writing articles criticizing fans for not showing up to support a losing team I will turn into Michael Douglas from “Falling Down”.

While ticket sales won’t be at a loss for MLSE in terms of the Leafs short term, I’ll be anxious to know how they will market their product to demographics that they normally didn’t have to really focus on in the past. Considering that Toronto will become/is a city surpassing the 50% mark in ethnic minorities, many of which don’t consider hockey their first sport of choice, I’m sure a lot of discussion is being done at MLSE about this change in marketing aim and consequently, how does that translate to the on-ice product. Like daoust and many others have argued, I would be very surprised if the Leafs go into a full rebuild and risk missing the playoffs for that much longer, just because they realize a winning product is easier to market, most especially to a new audience that has no previous affiliation to the Leafs or hockey in general.

A matter of being fed up? I mean, people make cracks about how brutal, abysmal, and basement-dwelling this franchise has been, but we haven’t actually started believing it ourselves have we?

The Leafs have been consistently in the playoff picture until the last few games of the regular season since the lockout. There’s always been a demand for seats because there’s literally always been the possibility of playoff contention, and always a rollercoaster stretch of games to keep fans excited.

The Leafs haven’t achieved great success in some time, but we’re not the Kings and Blackhawks of the past few years, nor are we the Penguins or Capitals of the pre-lockout years. The Leafs have been competing at roughly the same level as the 5-12 place teams in the league, which is plenty of reason for fan support. Believe it or not, a fan has only got about a 15% chance of cheering for their team in the conference finals every year. The assertion that only those teams are worth cheering for is generally only put forth by fans who are themselves delusional about their own club’s chances or from bandwagoners.

The on-ice product hasn’t been very good this year, and it was obvious to everyone not named eyebleaf from December on that the playoffs were to be looked forward to sometime that isn’t this season.

With a decrease in quality comes a decrease in interest, it’s a pretty simple idea. The idea that Leafs fans have been watching seasons exactly like this one and still selling out simply isn’t based in reality, and we can’t be fed up with something that hasn’t really happened in a while. If we were still talking playoffs at this point of the year and finishing 9th I would be fed up, but fortunately this does not appear to be the case.

Also, newsflash for the alarmists in the Toronto media: In the game against the rock-bottom Islanders when Sportsnet’s morons were moaning about all the empty seats, the Leafs attendance was listed around 19,050. That same night the Minnesota Wild, team of the self-proclaimed state of hockey, possessors of a sellout streak from their very first game, fighting for 8th spot in the West, announced they had once again sold out. Attendance: 18,400.

As a resident of FickleFanonia (Vancouver) I can say without reservation: Fans who bail out can suck it. It’s what separates Leaf fans from all others, a slavish devotion to sticking with a crap-ass team.