A silent seat shuffle at Mellon Arena has sparked mixed emotions among the Penguins and their fans.

Many of those with partial-season ticket plans are being asked to move or upgrade, creating some discontent. The Penguins aren't thrilled about upsetting some of their fan base, but they are pleasantly surprised at the reason for the changes.

"Full-season ticket sales are up 60 percent over this past season," Penguins vice president of communications Tom McMillan said. "We haven't seen anything like this since the [Stanley] Cup years. We anticipated a spike. We didn't know it would be anything like this."

McMillan declined to give specific numbers of season tickets for last season or next.

He pegged the increase on the team's improvement -- the Penguins reached 105 points and the playoffs in 2006-07 -- and the emergence of top young players, especially NHL scoring champion Sidney Crosby.

Because of the increase in demand for the 43-game ticket plans (includes two exhibition games) for 2007-08, the team for the first time in years has had to fully enforce a long-standing policy of reserving most of the better seats for full-season ticket holders.

Many fans with partial-season ticket plans -- six-game, 12-game and half-season packages -- received letters last month telling them their seats were now available only for full-season tickets.

Jason Parzyck, 26, of South Park, has had a half-season plan the past two seasons. A year ago, he upgraded to a better location, from section D-6 to D-9. This year, he invested about $700 toward 2007-08 in unused playoff tickets and a deposit before he was informed of the seat shuffle.

"I was surprised after I put my money down that they can just boot you," Parzyck said.

After giving it some thought, Parzyck opted to upgrade to a full-season plan to remain in his seats. He doesn't have the time and can't afford to go to all those games, though.

"I'm going to have to sell some to co-workers and friends," he said. "I like going to Penguins games, but a full season is a lot. A half season was just enough."

Penguins employees who field calls about the changes aren't always greeted kindly.

"There are people who have expressed unhappiness," McMillan said. "We expected that. There are only 17,000 seats. But I think most people, even if they don't like it, understand it's a business decision."

McMillan said the upside is that the increased revenue will give general manager Ray Shero more flexibility to sign players.

Paul Carfang, 47, of Export, got a double dose of the team's business maneuvering.

He and his family had four seats in F-17 -- the end where the Penguins shoot twice -- on a half-season plan called Pick-20 the past three seasons. Those seats now are reserved for full-season plans, and the Pick-20 has been eliminated, meaning those who buy a half-season plan no longer can select the games they want.

The Penguins are choosing games for half-season plans so they can sell two of those plans for each designated seat, but McMillan said there will be desirable games in each set.

"If I can pick whatever 20 games I want, I can understand how that screws up their full-season tickets," Carfang said.

Carfang grew up in the area but moved away for a career in the Air Force. He bought his Pick-20 tickets when he returned. The Penguins phased out that plan after the 2004-05 lockout season but grandfathered in those already on the plan, McMillan said, because they showed loyalty when the team was down.

Carfang and his family ended up sticking with a half-season plan for next season and moving to F-3, the side of the arena where the Penguins shoot once, and will have to take the games the Penguins select.

"I'm [ticked] about it, but I'm not going to stop going to the games," Carfang said.

He considered trying to split a full-season package to remain in F-17.

"We talked with a couple of people who sat around us the last three years," Carfang said, but one couple wanted to upgrade to a full season and an elderly couple decided to move like the Carfangs. Besides, Carfang said, it might be difficult to decide who got what games if they split a full-season plan.

McMillan said the Penguins are trying to accommodate such splits and soon will be informing those with partial-season plans about ways to find partners to share a full-season plan, including separate billing.

McMillan downplayed the idea that loyal fans are being pushed aside for bandwagon types. He said a large part of the ticket surge is made up of fans with full-season plans wanting to increase their number of seats, upgrade from partial to full plans or upgrade to better seats.

"We haven't even started seating the new people yet," he said. "You take care of your current season-ticket holders first."

Of the newcomers, McMillan said they fall mostly into three categories: part of a younger, new generation of fans; other new fans caught up in the buzz; and some who are coming back after slipping away while the team struggled.

Sales are so brisk -- McMillan called it "a frenzy that started around Christmas" -- that the team might have to cut off full-season ticket sales at some point.

"We always want to have some partial plans for a lot of reasons -- a wider fan base, affordability, lifestyle for those who don't want to go to 43 games a season," McMillan said.

They just can't guarantee that those seats will be as good as they have been the past few years.