[Cowperson]

A great many people with season tickets don't go to all the games. Instead, they have a group of partners they parcel off games to for cost.

The longer the rebuilding period, the weaker your chain of partners will become until much of the cost is falling on only a few or only yourself.

By the early 2000's, I was finding it difficult to even give my row 1, ice level seats away to clients. No one wanted to go to the games.

That was my experience.

The Flames were very lucky, business-wise, to go all the way to the Stanley Cup finals after seven years out of the playoffs. Normally, rebuilding a flatlining customer base that has gotten out of the habit of going to games would take a lot longer.

I live outside of the city now and get occasional complimentary tickets. I haven't paid for a Flames game for almost a decade after owning season tickets from the early 90's. I cancelled because it was inconvenient to go to a large number of games whereas before the Saddledome was quite close to my house.

Cowperson