Battalion attendance at all-time high
BRAMPTON, Ont. With the race for playoff positions tightening as the Ontario Hockey League’s regular season draws nearer its end, more people than ever are following the Battalion.rrA crowd of 4,803, second-biggest in team history, that saw a 4-3 loss to the Mississauga IceDogs on Sunday pushed Battalion attendance for the season to a record 83,071, an average of 2,596 for each of 32 home games to date.rrThe previous season attendance record was 82,163, an average of 2,417 a game, set in the inaugural 1998-99 campaign.rrWith the win, Mississauga moved into a tie with the Battalion atop the Central Division. Both trail the East Division’s Peterborough Petes by three points for first place in the Eastern Conference.rr”An exciting race aside, the attendance marks we’ve set are a tribute to the year-round efforts of Jim Mallory, Phil Ercolani and Sarah Watson in our office,” Battalion owner Scott Abbott said Monday.rr”This staff has done an outstanding job going back many months to increase our attendance, particularly through group sales. There’s no magic formula beyond hard work, and these people have done that work.”rrGroup sales have accounted for 19,111 tickets so far this season compared with 9,685 a year ago, an increase of 9,426 or 97.3 percent.rrTotal attendance at the same stage last season was 67,863, an average of 2,121 per game. That translates to an increase of 22.4 percent this season.rrThe Battalion, which has averaged 4,032 for each of its last five Brampton Centre dates, has two home games left in the regular season, against the Belleville Bulls next Sunday and the Petes on March 20.rr”We’ve got a lot of interest in the Peterborough game from groups, especially in the minor hockey realm,” said club president Mike Griffin. “It’s a no-brainer that we’re not going to draw schools, given March break coming.”rrThe Battalion set its single-game attendance record of 4,835 on Feb. 17 when the league-leading London Knights were the opposition. The crowd of 4,428 on Feb. 27 to see the Ottawa 67’s ranks fourth all-time.rrTwo other totals from the current season rank in the top 12 of the Troops’ regular-season numbers. The 3,781 for Mississauga’s visit Jan. 16 is 10th, and the 3,481 to see the Guelph Storm in the season opener Sept. 24 is 12th.rrBrampton Centre capacity is listed as 4,980, but that number is high and will be revised.rr”In effect, we had a sellout Sunday because there were no seats available to be sold to the public,” said Griffin. “The number for the London game was bigger, but we had about 20 seats left for that game.rr”The difference is that more users of private suites for London took advantage of their four extra tickets on top of the standard 10, and that wasn’t the case Sunday. But those tickets and wheelchair locations aren’t available to the general public.”rrGriffin said that no-shows accounted for any empty seats evident during the game Sunday, including parts of several rows.rr”There were more than 2,000 group sales for the game. If people choose not to attend for whatever reason, it doesn’t mean that those seats can be sold again.”r
