Head Tale

So my two favourite NHL teams are playing an exhibition game tonight in Regina  and I made the tough decision not to go…

There are a couple reasons…

– the biggest reason is the price.  Even though it’s an exhibition game, tickets range from $98 for the *lowest* priced to $148.50 for the highest (of those that are still available on TicketMaster anyhow – I think some seats may have even had higher prices, based on the asking prices on Kijiji.ca and other reseller sites.  Plus, the fact that I can even get pretty decent tickets at this late point tells me I’m not the only one put off by the high price.)  There was a late deal where you could get five tickets for $350 bringing the “per ticket” cost down to $75 which is getting closer to my own personal price point for a meaningless NHL exhibition game (maybe ~$50) but then you have to find four other suckers people willing to cough up that much as well.

– also, as an exhibition game, you know you won’t be getting the best hockey, both in terms of competition with nothing on the line, and also in terms of rosters.  (Regina’s already been burned when a previous exhibition game featured no star players.)  In fact, Calgary and the Islanders are playing a double-header tonight with half of each roster in Regina and half in Calgary.  We *did* get John Tavares, last year’s Hart Trophy finalist who would’ve been cool to see live but doesn’t compare to when the Oilers had exhibition games against the Blues back in the 1980’s and I got to see Wayne Gretzky and crew thanks to my dad!

– Pace had a “Welcome Back BBQ!” at his school from 5 – 7 pm so I didn’t want to commit to something else in case I got caught up there visiting or whatever.

– a related note: this seems like an ideal thing to take your son to (as my dad did for me in the 80’s like I mentioned) but Pace has close to zero interest in hockey so far (and I’m not pushing him – as much as I want to!)  So attending an exhibition game would probably be a few minutes of interest followed by me trying to corral a squirming kid or trying to watch the game while keeping him distracted with my iPhone.

– if I’m going to blow big bucks on an NHL game, it might as well be part of a road trip to Winnipeg or Calgary (where I even know some people with season tickets I might be able to hit up for freebies!).  Of course saying that, when we were in Winnipeg last January, guess who was in town and I still didn’t get down to the game (although to be fair, Jets games are sold out for the next five years meaning you have to go through scalpers or you’re not getting in.  And if I blanched at $90 for a nosebleed seat for a Flames exhibition game, $250+ for nosebleeds at a regular game seemed even worse!)

Anyhow, can’t wait for the regulation season to start when I can enjoy the majority of games from the comfort of my living room in crystal clear HDTV! 😉