Muskies pushing season tickets

Season-ticket sales for the Muskie boys’ hockey team are down by half of last year’s mark—and the squad needs the community to get behind it in order to operate on a balanced budget.
“They’ve been a lot harder to sell this year,” noted Gary Beck of the Blueline Club.
“I know there was one parent last year who sold between 30 and 40 tickets. He has sold 10 [this year],” Beck added.
The Blueline Club hopes to see a surge in season-ticket sales at the Muskies’ first home game Nov. 20 against the Kenora Broncos. But despite dropping the adult ticket price to $40, sales certainly have been slow so far.
Beck figured the presence of the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres in town simply is causing a crunch in fans’ hockey dollars, but he hoped to play on the need to continue “the tradition of Muskie hockey in Fort Frances.”
“I think one of the things that’s happened in the past, and that we’ve never really explored . . . was to kind of go and say we need some support here from the community, and even from our alumni,” Beck remarked.
“In 43 years, there’s a lot of players who have went through the program and they’ve benefited from being on the team,” he noted.
Beck mentioned the names of a number of local hockey players who have risen to high levels of competition after getting their start in a Muskie uniform, as well as a number of movers-and-shakers in the district who learned about hard work and co-operation on the ice.
“We can’t forget the leader of the [provincial] NDP, Howard Hampton . . . and what has he given back to our community?” Beck offered as an example.
Not to mention that fans are paying just $40 to see 10 games, which promise some quality entertainment as well as the chance to see the future of the sport.
“This past spring, we happened to see Chris Pronger raise the Stanley Cup above his head,” Beck noted. “I can remember sitting in ’52 Canadians Arena, watching this kid in Grade 9 from Dryden.”
Beck said the team is targeting alumni to get on board, admitting that the purchase of a season ticket for some would be close to a “donation,” rather than one tied to the plan to see most games over the season.
But that’s just what it’s going to take to keep further costs from being passed on to the players and their parents, he stressed.
“Somehow, we’re going to come up with the funds. Either extra fundraising or something like that will be looked at,” he noted.
Season tickets are available at Skates & Blades and Taggs Source for Sports in Fort Frances, as well as at Tompkins Hardware in Emo.
As noted above, season tickets for adults have been reduced to $40 from $45 last year while student passes are $20. Tickets for individual games cost $7 and $5, respectively.
For more information, call Beck at 274-7743.