CORNER BROOK An extra toonie is all fans will have to dish out to watch the Western Royals push towards a berth in the Herder final.
Ticket prices across the board will be $15 for all Royals home games against the Clarenville Caribous in a Newfoundland Senior Hockey League best-of-seven series that gets underway this weekend at the Hodder Memorial Recreation Complex.
The ticket price, whether it’s seating or standing, includes a $1 surcharge. The Hodder has a seating capacity of 1,000 and can hold up to 1,600 fans including standing room.
The Royals haven’t had a full house all season, the biggest crowd on record was 1,300 paid fans at a game early in the regular season.
Ticket prices at the home venues of all four participating playoff teams have gone up, but that’s the norm in senior hockey circles as league officials keep focused on making the league viable for all teams with the playoff round proving to be key in a team’s longevity in the league.
There will also be a revenue-sharing agreement for the two series, the other being the top-seed Grand Falls-Windsor Cataracts tangling with the fourth-place Eastlink CeeBee Stars, which also gets underway this weekend with the first two games being held in the friendly confines of Joe Byrne Memorial Stadium.
At the beginning of the season, according to Royals president Ross Coates, all teams agreed to a revenue-sharing deal whereby the playoff teams give a certain amount of cash, which Coates wouldn’t divulge, to the team who ended up on the outside looking in when the regular season came to a close.
Coates also said a revenue-sharing deal for the Herder final is also being discussed but nothing has been etched in stone at this point in time.
Meanwhile, league chairman Neil Norcott confirmed that the Flyers, as the team missing the playoffs, would receive $1,500 from the four teams involved in the first round of the playoffs for a total of $6,000.
Holding seat holders for the Royals in the Deer Lake area can pick up tickets at the Hodder box office from 6-9 p.m. for the next three days and general admission tickets will also be available at this time.
For fans in the Corner Brook area, holding seat owners can pick up tickets at Meineke on Maple Valley Road 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. starting today and will be available until Friday.
Fans in the Corner Brook area can also pick up general admission tickets at Meineke during regular business hours for the next three days.
The Royals will clash with the Caribous Saturday 7:30 p.m. and Sunday 2 p.m. at the Hodder Memorial Recreation Complex.
