I'm becoming a fair weather Flames fan. Am I alone?

[wired]

The tickets I got for my birthday were resell tickets. My wife said the price was much better for the seats we got.
Still, rather stay home than drive 3 hours to watch uninspired hockey.
My daughter just drove back to Calgary yesterday, so got my kid fix for a while.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by wired

The tickets I got for my birthday were resell tickets. My wife said the price was much better for the seats we got.
Still, rather stay home than drive 3 hours to watch uninspired hockey.
My daughter just drove back to Calgary yesterday, so got my kid fix for a while.

Resell is an interesting market right now. Some people are actually pricing their tickets appropriately and are selling while others are out to lunch. I was looking for lower bowl seats for a January game and on Ticketmaster they had both reseller and non-reseller seats in some sections. Some of the resellers were still trying to ask between 2 and 4 times the regular price. Why would I pay $700 per seat when I could pay $200 for the regular price seat? I was also surprised to see that the Flames were still selling regular priced Club seats for a lot of the games.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I've slowly been losing interest in hockey over the last couple of years. I mean the Flames are my team and will always my team, but I find that I'm not sitting through whole games anymore or rushing home to watch hockey, I've even refused tickets because "I have other things to do".

Maybe its the style of the game now, but it just seems so passionless and meh. I think that the moves to improve offense (which really hasn't improved the offense) have taken the heart of the game (and no I'm not talking about fighting). There's no passion or fire right now.

I think a lot of people are in the same boat, myself included.

The NHL has lost something since the lockout in 2004/2005. Whether we as fans want to admit it or not, for many of us the game was not viewed as a business before that point. Since then it has become a very big business and when that happens, it tends to make people realize that paying large costs for tickets, beer, merch etc isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially when continuous price increases are designed to deepen millionaires pockets. Finally, we are not getting the same kind of edge of your seat physical game that we used to see with the more recent rule changes. For many people this is probably a big reason they became fans in the first place.

I still enjoy the game but I'm certainly not going above and beyond to attend/watch every game I can anymore.

[burn_this_city]

My buddy and I have split seasons tickets for 12 years. This year he mentioned that he was losing interest and considered giving them up. I was pretty optimistic that they would turn the corner this year and we would regret giving them up. Now I'm strongly considering it for next year. The life has been sucked out of the building and the team in general. Going feels like a chore and more often than not its just a long disappointing night. Just been a slow downward trajectory for 4-5 years with the one playoff run juicing things for us.

[8sPOT]

Maybe it's just me but I like hearing this sort of thing. Fans losing interest, not wanting to go to games. This means I can go more often, will be easier to score tickets and possibly cheaper. Maybe even take all 3 kids.

If you've been a fan of this team for any length of time you've been through some awful stretches. I've been a fan since I was maybe 6 years old way back in '88.

Yeah this team pisses me off, annoys me, and makes me not like hockey at times. But the feeling of a Flames win trumps all that. A 4 or 5 game winning streak will no doubt trigger a much different thread. This is a hard league to win in. Its an extremely thin line between a win and a loss sometimes. It's fair to say not much has gone right this season, but if I'm able, I always watch the Flames play. Go Flames Go!

[Galakanokis]

Not being in Calgary and generally taping all of the games I have to admit I am having a hard time tuning in to games, definitely not going out of my way to catch games anyways. I use to watch all the games, put the kids to bad and watch the game. Now, if I do watch, I am skipping through most of it anyways. It is just bad hockey.

I am not sure if the season is sunk but they better turn this around right now and put together a 7-2-1 record or something. Need to play some inspired hockey moving forward.

[GreenLantern2814]

I've found it very difficult to care about the struggles of millionaire athletes in the last six months. I find the rationalizing and excuses from the players, media, and fans to be exhausting.

The Calgary Flames have THREE regulation wins. In 16 games. They have allowed 4+ goals 10 times already. That puts them on pace to allow 4+ in 51 games this year.

This is tough. Since 1997, the team has made the playoffs five times, won four rounds, and still somehow never managed to draft higher than 4th. It wasted the careers of the best forward and best goalie the team had ever seen. 2014-15 was the first time in a decade where I found myself excited to watch this team. I wanted to see what they'd do next.

I recorded the Ranger game, and stopped watching midway through the second. This is too much. They ask too much. They ask for our time, our money, and our emotional support, and we get less than nothing back.

Look, if what they give us is enough for you, I won't say anyone's wrong. Myself, I've given them 12 years of nearly religious devotion. As with the Church, I'm tired of being let down.

[Russic]

Ken King and Brian Burke bring it up at every season ticket holder event: we know you have many choices with how you spend your entertainment dollars, and we thank you for spending them here.

Every time I end up thinking "good point... I do have a lot of other options that I haven't explored yet."

It's unfortunate timing for the fan in me. I've gotten much busier as the quality of the product has decreased. I got married, had kids, got a grown-up job... now I'm left with a lot less free time than I had 16 years ago when I first bought season tickets. True, part of that is poor time management, but it doesn't change the fact that I have about 1 hour/night to do whatever I want. When I rank all the things I want to accomplish in that hour, watching the Flames is literally falling out of the top 10. Last week I started reorganizing folders of photos on my computer. Seriously. That is a thing that consciously chose to do. I didn't even turn the game on in the background. If that's not a fan that's lost interest in the game, I don't know what is.

I also find a few of the more exciting parts of the game are no longer enjoyable to me. A family member of mine is best friends with a former NHL player that has had concussion issues. Every now and then I get an update on him, and I can honestly say it sounds like his life totally sucks (I'd prefer to not use his name as I don't exactly hear these things with his permission). Now after every huge hit and every fight I can't stop thinking about a guy that can't even play with his kids anymore. Once you remove your enjoyment of hits and fights, there's a big piece of hockey appeal that's missing.

[btimbit]

Like others, I've rarely missed a game in the past. Even during losing seasons. But somehow this year feels different, like they're playing without any emotion.

I'll still tune in if I'm not busy, but before I would make sure I had nothing else to do on game nights. Now, well, during the Rangers fame I cleaned the garage. Just couldn't be bothered to sit there any more.

[Street Pharmacist]

I end up watching the first period or two because I desperately want the exciting escape it used to give me. Then it sucks and I do something else. Two years ago it was the highlight night if most weeks. I'm not even really sure when game nights are now until the score app lets me know the game is about to start

[united]

Originally Posted by Russic

Ken King and Brian Burke bring it up at every season ticket holder event: we know you have many choices with how you spend your entertainment dollars, and we thank you for spending them here.

And Burke often adds in how they are in the entertainment business, and having an entertaining on-ice product is the first priority regardless of result. How's that going, Brian?

[tvp2003]

Someone should email this thread to Ken King. May not be representative of the complete fan base, but it's a start.

[belsarius]

With a new baby in the house I don't watch games live anymore. It's always the PVR for when I get a chance. It's been the same song and dance for the last 10 games it seems, they get off to a good or even great first 10 minutes, make one mistake and bam back of the net. Two weeks ago I would ride it out and watch, this Saturday I found myself after the second goal just fast forwarding to see if they score and make it a game again. 3x speed.. 3-0... 4-0... 4-1. Stop, go back 2 minutes, watch the goal and FF again... game over.

More and more I just end up doing this because I have really no hope, why watch listless hockey with my spare time. At least with Hartley there was always a good third and chance of a comeback, even last year, but this year it seems they get scored on and it's all but over.

[united]

I'm not buying their season ticket holder spin, either. I imagine much of it is deferrals as already mentioned by others.

Here is a screenshot of seats still available for the game on Wednesday. This does not include the re-sale market, it is Ticketmaster only. Ignoring singles, every blue dot is a seat that, if there wasn't any season ticket holder availability, would not show up. There is tons not sold. Now, some of these may be released player holds, but certainly not the prime seats.

[Redlan]

Definitely where I am at in life and my age (so liberating to be over 40) that the balancing act gets harder to prioritize Flames games into my schedule. Plus...So boring, gone to 2 games so far this year and I either had to pump beer into me or I kept looking at the time to pack it up, I should not have to entertain myself.

[rohara66]

Originally Posted by united

I'm not buying their season ticket holder spin, either. I imagine much of it is deferrals as already mentioned by others.

Here is a screenshot of seats still available for the game on Wednesday. This does not include the re-sale market, it is Ticketmaster only. Ignoring singles, every blue dot is a seat that, if there wasn't any season ticket holder availability, would not show up. There is tons not sold. Now, some of these may be released player holds, but certainly not the prime seats.

There are 1200+ ticket available for Wednesdays game on Stub Hub as well.

[JohnnyO]

I've been a flames fan from day 1. I watched games in the corral, lived through The battle of Alberta, was on the edge of my seat in '86 and loving the cup win in '89. Living through the young guns era and watching Paul Kruse get beat up every night. Then as a young adult loving the spring of 2004 and all it's craziness.

I have started to lose interest as well. I haven't watched a full game in a long time. I don't look forward to ending the day watching a game anymore.

The Flames slow start year after year, and then figuring it out in Feb/Mar when it doesn't matter is getting old and cost them a shot at some high end franchise players.

I don't know what a penalty is anymore.

The physical aspect of the game is gone, this started to happen right after the lockout. This single aspect is probably the biggest turn off for me.

A clean body check ends up with a fight protecting the player who was hit and no instigator penalty.

The craptastic Sportsnet broadcast. This is probably the #2 turnoff for me. The sound issue is unacceptable. The personalities are awful aside from Hextall (now gone), Hrudey/Ball.

The player interviews are unbearable to watch. "Pucks Deep" "Give 100%", "Play our Game", "Get pucks to the net" etc. There are no personalities like Roenick, Fluery etc. The media lobes them the same easy question every time. (I did enjoy the Hartley quotes/interviews)

The debacle of CalgaryNext and a proposal/presentation/website that looks like a Jr. High student put together.

This years coaching staff is in way over their heads. Their is nothing to show they can win a string of games in a row, they can't even compete for several periods in a row. The season is over and it's not even half way through November. Grossman over Kulak ?? Chaisson STILL on the first line, that experiment failed 4+ games ago!!! Letting Colborne walk for nothing? Bottom of the league, in almost every stat, and spending at the Cap??

It would cost me $300+ to take my family to a game and the team is out for a Sunday skate. The atmosphere in the dome is horrible, the food choices are awful, and the physical ice surface is embarrassing.

I will always be a fan of this team but no where near the way I used to be.

[genetic_phreek]

This thread is Canuck-esque

[HERIONBEER]

I am and likely will always be a Flames fan......I just drink more on game days now than ever before.

[Alpine Fisher]

I always have and always will be a Flames Fan. But these lean years are getting to be ridiculous.

We didn't make Playoffs last year, but atleast the games were entertaining. Imagine if we had Elliot & Johnson last year - I think we would have snuck into a wild card spot.