On the other hand, this is the ninth time Caps prices have gone up in the past 10 seasons, and it comes a year after tickets went up by an average of 8 percent. I heard from one fan who started buying tickets for $10 a pop in the old Eagles Nest — an absurd bargain, to be sure. But his seats are now going from $36 to $41 per game, a 14 percent jump, and he said he’s wavering on whether to renew. The increase is even steeper for Verizon Center’s cheapest tickets, which are going from $28 to $33, an 18 percent jump.

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I heard from another fan who has tickets in the 100 level, where the $5 hike is much less noticeable. He said he will almost definitely re-up and that he knows the market can support the increase. Still, “it’s ridiculous how much [the Caps] raised prices for a team that hasn’t won a Cup,” that fan wrote.

The best non-premium seats — center ice in the lower level — are going from $165 to $170 a game, an increase of just 3 percent. The highest-priced VIP seats are going from $450 to $455, an increase of about 1 percent.

As recently as 2009, the cheapest seats in the arena — the entire Mezzanine Corner sections in the 400-level — cost $18 a game. In the intervening years, those sections — like the rest of the arena — have been sliced up into a variety of price points. The Mezzanine Corners now are split into three tiers, based on row number, and also into “Attack” and “Defend” ends, based on how often the Caps are shooting at each end. The season-ticket prices in those sections next season will range from $33 to $44.

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The cheapest Wizards season tickets this season, on the other hand, were just $16. The Wizards have not yet announced prices for next season.

The Caps did not raise ticket prices after the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. At least some tickets have gone up in every other year over the past decade, although not every price point saw an increase in every season, and some seats actually declined in price in certain years.