The Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche no longer scrap in the same neighbourhood, but they're in some disagreement over which has the better house.
Maple Leaf Sports and
Entertainment Ltd. officials
were surprised to hear that the
Avs were claiming the longest
streak of sellouts in major league
sports -- 487 games
-- which ended Monday
night when the announced
crowd of 17,681 at the Pepsi
Center fell 326 shy of a sellout
against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Denver's boast would
put the Leafs' reputation as
the National Hockey League's
toughest ticket at risk.
At one time, the Leafs were
boasting that every game at
Maple Leaf Gardens since
World War II had sold out and
certainly their seven years at
the Air Canada Centre had
not seen many empty seats.
Tom Anselmi, the executive
vice-president and COO of
MLSEL, looked into the matter
yesterday.
"I don't think I can dispute
what the Avs are saying,
but there are some factors to
consider," Anselmi said. "Our
announced seating capacity
is 18,819 and we sell every
one, plus standing room,
a few obstructed seats and
extra tickets to suites, to a
maximum of 16. That's why
we announce around 19,300
every game and we've been
at 104% capacity.
"But since we opened the
ACC, there was two or three
games that might have been
glitches. One, I think, was a
game on Halloween and the
others in the early days of the
building when we didn't have
an accurate method of counting
the crowd."
Colorado's claim of 487
stretches back to the team's
arrival from Quebec City in
1995, when the club played at
the smaller McNichols Sports
Arena.
Paul Andrews, executive
vice president and chief marketing
officer for Kroenke
Sports, told the Denver Post
this summer that the streak
was on the level, despite
observations of a few empty
seats through the years.
"We're certainly not going
to hide anything from anyone,"
Andrews said. "This is
an honest organization, top
to bottom. If (the streak ends)
we'd admit it, and start working
on getting another sellout
streak started the next game."
