Hamilton Predators sell 7,200 seasons tickets

TSN.ca is reporting that Ticketmaster yesterday accepted deposits for close to 7,200 seasons tickets beginning at 10:00 AM yesterday morning. In contrast the Nashville Predators reportedly have a seasons ticket base of 8,500 and have dipped as low as 6,532 seasons tickets during the 2003-04 season.

The ticket sales include almost 60 $5,000 deposits for corporate boxes, 4,700 $1,000 deposits for lower bowl seats and almost 2,500 $500 deposits for upper bowl seats. By my calculations that means the Hamilton Predators have already gathered $6.25 Million in seasons tickets revenue and these are just deposits.

In my humble opinion both the city of Nashville and the NHL can say goodbye to the Predators franchise in Tennessee. The NHL cannot simply ignore this obvious demonstration of interest in a hockey franchise in Southern Ontario.

Mr. Balsillie has put the NHL in check, with mate coming in two moves.

In an intersting side note TSN.ca is also reporting that Buffalo is not 'at this time' opposed to a team in Hamilton. Is this Balsillie's next move? Or just a feint. It will be interesting to see if the Sabres become involved in Balsillie's pitch to the NHL in the near future.

Red Wings smoking, Vokoun coughs one up

Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Holmstrom seem to be clicking lately.

Datsyuk had a four assist night last night and has 2 goals, 12 assists in his last 5 games while both Zetterberg and Holmstrom are on streaks of their own.

On the other side, Vokoun in his third game back from injury coughed up two weak goals on 8 shots and was replaced by Mason early in the second period. If you have the Vokoun/Mason tandem and were looking forward to dropping Mason now that Vokoun has returned... hold that thought and Mason. With Mason's stellar play during Vokoun's injury you can expect to see Mason starting a fair number of games for Nashville, it won't be a true timeshare between the pipes but Mason is no longer strictly a backup until Vokoun reseats himself as the outright number one goalie.

If either Datsyuk or Zetterberg are on your leagues waiver wire snap them up quick. While they are both hot they have been slightly dissapointing this season but seem to be playing up to expectations lately. See if you can swing a trade for a currently higher scoring player (Brind'Amour for Datsyuk or Ray Whitney for Zetterberg?) and ride them out the rest of the season. It seems likely that at least Datsyuk and Zetterberg will continue to produce.

As for Holmstrom, he may be worth a waiver wire pickup depending upon your roster depth. In my case he is not worth it but if you've got a spot to burn ride the streak while it lasts, he has 15 points in his last 11 games with 9 goals in that span.