Fans of the Ottawa Senators lined up all night outside the Scotiabank Place to buy tickets Thursday for the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals, as the organization threatened to crack down on price gouging by resellers.
"We love the Sens and we're just really excited," Caroline Eastwood told CTV Ottawa after waiting in line for more than two days. "We're going to the Stanley Cup finals!"
There was a limit of two tickets per person for each game, and the tickets for the finals sold out in just four minutes.
The Senators will face the Anaheim Ducks in the finals with the first home game to take place on Saturday, June 2. The series begins in Anaheim on Monday.
The official Senators website listed tickets priced from $129 for standing room to $420 for 100 level club seats.
The tickets, sold on , went public Thursday at 10 a.m. ET, with only about 900 seats available for each game in the Coca-Cola Fan Zone and the standing room section.
Some fans waited outside Scotiabank Place for days, bringing sleeping bags for the long haul.
"It was worth it! May dad's 60th birthday is coming up and this is his gift," said one lucky fan.
Meanwhile, team management is threatening to crack down on scalpers and season ticket holders who are reselling tickets at higher prices.
Ottawa Senators Chief Operating Officer Cyril Leeder confirmed to CTV.ca that the organization is trying to curb ticket price gouging.
"We're reviewing all the online ticket sites now and anybody we find selling tickets at more than face value, we're revoking the tickets and reselling them to our fans," Leeder told CTV.ca in a phone interview from Ottawa.
Leeder says his organization is aware of the most egregious websites and is monitoring them.
"We know all these sites, we go onto them, check what tickets are available. Then we go back to our database and find out who the ticketholder is," said Leeder.
Ticket scalping in Ontario is governed by the , and people found guilty under this act could be fined a maximum of $5,000.
"Scalping today is different than it was 10 years ago; it's much more sophisticated online now," said Leeder. While it's hard to 'put a dent' into traditional scalpers who ply their trade in front of the arenas, said Leeder, "we do our best to mitigate it, although it's a police matter."
On eBay, tickets with a face value of $420 can be found for as much as US$1000 each.
The organization is currently offering a promotion that will guarantee playoff tickets for customers who buy season ticket packages for next year.
On Thursday, thousands accepted an invitation by Mayor Larry O'Brien to "extend their lunch hours into overtime" to show support for the Ottawa Senators. Crowds gathered at Festival Plaza, Ottawa City Hall for a show that included entertainers and special guests.
During the series, fans are being encouraged to follow the 'Be Red' theme of the team's playoff drive by wearing the colour red.
A new poll suggests that Canadian hockey fans see the Toronto Maple Leafs as the team that most represents the country.
Twenty-seven per cent polled -- who identified themselves as 'avid hockey fans' -- chose the Leafs as "Canada's team." Still, the Senators were not far behind with 26 per cent saying the team represented Canada. Montreal came in third with 23 per cent.
Nearly half of those polled said they thought it was likely that the Senators will win the series, with 88 per cent of the 'avid hockey fans' predicting victory.
With reports from CTV Ottawa
