Trouble in Hockeytown

A friend-of-the-blogger attended Game 1 of the Red Wings - Sharks series and reported that roughly half the lower bowl was empty. Tickets were available at the start of the game. I find this pretty shocking because for years it was very difficult to land tickets for even regular season games in the Motor City. The US auto manufacturers are in the midst of another terrible downturn so I'm guessing that large numbers of people don't have available cash. Just this week the Detroit News ran a story about people selling their beautifully restored trophy cars to raise money because of hard times.

Over the last two decades the metro Detroit area has been the hottest NHL market in the USA. The Red Wings have been able to charge high prices and still sell out the 2nd oldest arena in the league most nights. That era seems to be coming to a close and the Wings might actually have to develop a marketing strategy to move their product.

If these tough times continue up there I wonder what will happen to their season tickets. This same friend-of-the-blogger received a phone call some months back about season tickets after sitting on their waiting list for many years.