Longtime fans get left out in the cold
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For Carl DiGiorgio, the geometry doesn't compute.
Placing 18,000 Penguins season-ticket holders among some 65,000 seats at Heinz Field for the Jan. 1 Winter Classic shouldn't leave such wide angles, he figures.
"I expected my seats to be in the lower bowl," DiGiorgio, of Upper St. Clair, said this week. "Instead, I'm in the upper bowl, section 531, near the top of the stadium.
"Maybe I'm just being naive, but I thought you would get rewarded for being a longtime season-ticket holder."
The Penguins and media outlets have fielded grumbles from Penguins season-ticket holders disappointed in their seat locations for the outdoor game that will feature Sidney Crosby and the Penguins against Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
Tom McMillan, Penguins vice president for communications, said the club met its prime objective of offering tickets to all Consol Energy Center season-ticket holders and that the seats were distributed based on the inventory offered by the NHL.
"The biggest thing about events like this is, it's not our event, even though we're lucky enough to have it in our city," McMillan said. "It's like an All-Star Game or Super Bowl. It's a league event. They set the prices and control the tickets.
"We don't want to make them the bad guy, but people think it's a Penguins home game. It's not."
Brian Jennings, NHL executive vice president for marketing, said with such a popular event -- commissioner Gary Bettman said demand for tickets would reach into the hundreds of thousands -- it's a matter of trying to accommodate as many interests as possible.
"We have a lot of stakeholders that want access to the game," Jennings said.
Penguins season-ticket holders should be the largest contingent at the Winter Classic. The half- and full-season plans add up to about 18,000.
The Penguins received 30,000 seats from the NHL, but they are scattered around Heinz Field rather than in big blocks. To be equitable, the Penguins worked to offer lower-bowl seats to those who have lower-level seats at Consol Energy Center, and upper-bowl seats to those in the upper level of the new hockey arena. Some of the Penguins' seats are in the upper level of the north end zone, but those bleachers will have seatbacks for this game.
First Published August 19, 2010 12:00 am
