One of the biggest topics that is discussed every season is the lack of home ice advantage for the Ottawa Senators when the Montreal Canadiens or Toronto Maple Leafs visit town. It usually ends up being close to a 50/50 split in the building. This has led to a trickle down effect of many Sens fans not wanting to attend these games, especially those against the Leafs. A large portion of the visiting crowd is made of those in their 20s who with too much alcohol (or even without) end up arguing using expletives with Sens fans and even engage physically. Can you blame fans with kids for not wanting to expose them to that?

Of course it's no big secret that the number one reason for the number of visiting Leafs/Habs fan is price. They can easily acquire a ticket to see their team in Ottawa at a fraction of the cost of watching them in their own city. Scalpers take full advantage of this fact and usually scoop up a large number of tickets that end up on the secondary market. Season ticket holders are also known to part with their tickets to these games. Whether it's not wanting to attend because of the visiting crowd, not willing to pay the large cost to attend said game, or using it as the opportunity to make a profit and pay off their season tickets, a lot of their tickets end up in the hands of opposition fans.

Because of the newly implemented dynamic pricing, the gate price for these games tend to soar when compared to all other home games. For Sens fans, the question becomes why buy a ticket to one of these games, when you can buy tickets to several others instead at the same cost? The Ottawa Senators have tried to reverse that trend this season. They have offered season ticket holders the opportunity to buy additional tickets to these games (sometimes with savings up to 50%) to pass on to fellow Sens fans. The problem with this approach is some definitely take advantage of the promotion to resell and make a profit. On the other hand, the Sens Supporters section in 319 (run by the Red Scarf Union) was a success for the first Leafs game. Offering $25 tickets for hardcore Sens fans and banning opposition jerseys in their section produced something that hasn't been seen at a Leafs game in the Canadian Tire Centre in some time, a section full of Sens fans.

The Nashville Predators have a similar problem when the Chicago Blackhawks or St. Louis Blues visit their town. Fox News just released an article explaining the Predators tentative plan to solve this issue with new stricter ticket purchasing measures. For these select games, ticket purchasing will first be offered to season ticket holders and the local market before the general public. However, the biggest change is the restriction on re-selling these tickets. You will have to register a name for the ticket and have a matching ID when you attend the game. For season ticket holders that can't attend the game, the team will buy back the ticket at cost + 10%. The team admits this strategy may prevent a sellout, but they're forging ahead and plan to donate any unsold tickets to charity.

I do believe that this strategy could very well work in Ottawa. By restricting resale you destroy the secondary market (Kijiji, Stubhub, etc) which out of town fans rely on and by giving purchase priority to season ticket holders you can try to get tickets into the hands of Sens fans. Of course, local sales will open up the opportunity for those Leafs/Habs fans living in Ottawa to acquire tickets, but you would hope Sens fans would outnumber them.

The team would need to concede dollars in order to implement this strategy. Without Leafs/Habs fans buying up the tickets, demand for these games would go down, which would cause the gate price to go down. Sens fans just aren't willing to pay that large a premium to see these two teams over all the others. That means the team would be bringing in a lot less revenue for these games. As a side, I've been told the team gets a portion of Sens ticket sales that occur on StubHub due to their partnership, but I can't confirm that. If it's true, that would be even more lost revenue for these games seeing as they have the highest resale value.

Since the announcement of these measures in Nashville, many have criticized them for essentially trying to ban opposition fans. I don't look at it that way. I see ownership willing to take a loss of money in order to maintain that home ice advantage. If you're a Nashville fan you have to be pleased. Who cares what other fanbases think? Now I can't see the Ottawa Senators implementing anything like this anytime soon due to their much discussed financial issues. If they were to do so though, it would be a strong sign by ownership to show that the team is serious about standing behind their fans, even if it means losing some money.