Nationals fans who are still infuriated over the loss of their ballpark to invaders from Philadelphia last Monday will have to excuse me, since I’ve seen that film before.
When the Capitals entered the NHL in 1974, their fan base wasn’t sure, quite yet, exactly what they had. Minor league hockey had been played in the D.C. area for a number of years, but this was the big leagues. The original Caps had little in the way of actual talent and it showed — they won only 8 of 80 games that first season.
Despite a new all-time record for losses (67), the first year Caps averaged more than 10,000 fans per game, a figure most in the league thought was pretty remarkable. They were able to hit that five-figure average for one very specific reason.
Every time Philadelphia came to Landover the game would sell out, and make no mistake about it, when the Flyers were in town, the Capital Centre became Spectrum South.
Flyer fans brought a sea of orange-and-black, and it wasn’t pretty. Those Philly supporters, in whose vocabulary the word “decorum” doesn’t reside, weren’t shy about reminding you how good their team was and how badly your team would lose. In those days they weren’t exaggerating.
Let’s be honest: Pennsylvania sports fans travel well. Whatever the sport, those folks think nothing of loading up the wagon and heading down the highway. Look at how many Steelers’ fans manage to get tickets in either Washington or Baltimore when their team heads for the region, and these are venues that are supposedly sold out in season subscriptions.
The Nationals have taken a beating for “allowing” tickets to be sold in huge numbers to fans from outside the area, but in truth, there’s little they can do about it. Besides, an awful lot of those Phils fans got their seats from D.C.-area brokers.
If you represent yourself as a group — willing to buy at least 25 tickets — you’ll get a special rate, and it was apparent by checking eBay and Stub Hub the week prior to the opener that a number of work-at-home entrepreneurs had done just that. There were many, many ads for Opening Day tickets — with locations listed in various parts of the Mid-Atlantic — offering anywhere from a single to more than dozen ducats for the opener. Good seats, too.
The easy solution would be to ask the schedule maker to make sure the Phillies open elsewhere. It should’ve been someone else this year anyway, since the Phils also provided the opposition in the 2009 opener. Bring in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati — teams that rarely have the opportunity to play before the president. Let Philadelphia fans head for South Florida, or Houston, someplace nice and warm.
Someplace that’s not a short car trip from home.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at [email protected].
