With less than a month to go before Ottawa Fury FC opens it sophomore season at TD Place, the club is confident it can improve on last year's attendance numbers.

While the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group was pleased with the club's reception for its inaugural North American Soccer League season last year, year two will provide a clearer picture of the city's support for professional soccer.

Fury averaged 5,536 people per game last year at TD Place after moving over from Carleton University, though that number was propped up by a league record-setting crowd of 14,593 at the first-ever soccer game played at the renovated Lansdowne Park.

On paper, numbers should be up this year. Much of the major construction at Lansdowne is finished, restaurants and stores have opened and the area is becoming a destination. The team itself was also significantly upgraded during the off-season as head coach Marc Dos Santos brought in a number of new faces that should vastly improve the on-field product. The stadium is also considered one of the best in the league, if not the best.

Fury will have no issue attracting the die-hard soccer fans, one of what Fury president John Pugh described as three key demographics the club wants to attract to games this year. The other two? The average sports fan in the 18-35 demographic who come to games in groups and "enjoys themselves," said Pugh, as well as families, arguably the most important of the three.

On Saturday, Fury took a big step in marketing games as a family experience by announcing the Fury Fanatics initiative, which will provide free access to all games for kids 14 and under that are part of local soccer clubs that sign up for the program. It's a crafty idea if you consider that most of those kids will be bringing along an adult chaperon or two.

While Pugh wasn't getting into specific numbers, he said season ticket sales are "doing pretty well," while single-game tickets also went on sale Saturday.

"We think we're going to be (at last year's season ticket numbers) or there abouts," Pugh told the Sun.

But individual game tickets will be key for Fury, with Pugh acknowledging that "a lot of Fury fans make their choice of which game or games they're going to maybe two weeks out."

"We learned that as one of the behaviours of our fans last year," he said.

With the league attendance average sitting at 5,400 last season, Fury drew some decent crowds despite only winning one of its nine fall season home games. On-field success will have a huge impact on ticket sales, just as it will for the RedBlacks following a 2-16 expansion season.

Pugh wouldn't say if the club had a specific target in mind for how many fans it expected to average in 2015.

"We want as many people as we can possibly get," he said. "We know we're going to have some great days in the summer and some cool days in April and October, but we think we can build on what we have."

Fury had the benefit last year of kicking off its fall season at TD Place after the RedBlacks had started their season, meaning that most of the early kinks of moving into a new building had been ironed out before soccer arrived. The result was a consistently positive experience for fans, even if their numbers fluctuated depending, usually, on the weather.

"It's very satisfying that those who came enjoyed the experience," said Pugh. "The question is, how do we get more in?"

FURY TICKETS ON SALE

Despite a steady snowfall outside TD Place on Saturday, soccer was the subject of much excitement inside.

Just as Ottawa Fury FC was telling a few hundred young soccer players and their families about a new program that gets young players into this year's games for free, single-game tickets for the upcoming spring season also went on sale to the general public.

Fury will open its second NASL home schedule at April 18 against Minnesota United FC and will play five other home games during before the mid-season break, including a Canadian Championship contest against FC Edmonton April 22. Fury will also close out its home spring season schedule against Edmonton in a league match May 29.

Tickets for Fury home games range in price from $17 to $34 for adults and $17 to $27 for kids. Seats in section W, the official supporters' section, are available for $20.

More information is available at OttawaFuryFC.com.

Twitter: @chrishofley