Canucks: Expect more empty seats at Rogers Arena

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Patrick Johnston: With ticket prices still sky-high — at least at face value — it takes a soul that wants a beating in order to show up these days

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Published Mar 10, 2026 • Last updated 5 hours ago • 3 minute read

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Such is the state of the season that a Tuesday session at Rogers Arena drew one of the thinnest media turnouts of the season. Just what is there left to ask?

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Obviously, the reporters and cameras will keep showing up, but with seven more home games to go on this current homestand and the playoffs long a writeoff, the trade deadline now passed, finding story angles will become a test of creativity.

And for fans, attending Canucks games will be a test of a whole other order. Those who show up will be answering a simple question: How many of us out there are masochists?

With ticket prices still sky-high — at least at face value — it takes a soul that wants a beating in order to show up at Rogers Arena. And that’s before facing down $25 beers and $25 hotdogs. No wonder the business team is madly trying to flog deals for food on social media, although those are only for people who buy their tickets from the team at full price.

Which leads you to wonder who would. With upper-bowl tickets for Thursday’s game against Nashville still priced at $150, why would you pay that when you can buy one on the resale market for a third of the price? A few years ago, the Canucks entered the world of “unified ticketing,” a data-driven scheme where the team that is selling the tickets optimizing their pricing by taking into account how the overall market is selling tickets for, not just a single-set price anymore.

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It’s not exactly fan-friendly, because no longer are teams just picking a price and running with it. They are finding ways to price things in real-time. And when you find a way to creatively manage your own ticket inventory by pushing down on your overall season-ticket base — remember single-game ticket prices are always higher than what a season-ticket holder pays per game — you can even further juice your ticket revenues.

Of course, this all demands that you are selling out, that your team is performing to a level that drives demand on its own. So here are the Vancouver Canucks, who seem to be chasing the fans of visiting teams as much as anything. The crowd for Monday’s 2-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators may have been the first time in Canucks history that the crowd was so heavily in favour of the squad from the nation’s capital. The Leafs and Habs have always drawn in visiting fans willing to pay a premium to see their heroes, and the Oilers seem to have joined that club too.

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But the Sens? Really? And yet that’s what happened.

Brady Tkachuk #7 of the Ottawa Senators skates past fans while celebrating a goal against the Canucks at Rogers Arena on March 9, 2026. Photo by Rich Lam /Getty Images

There are seats to be had, and for cheap. Will the Canucks be able to fill seats with visiting fans again this season, though? There are few rival teams coming in over the next month that are likely to draw in hundreds of patrons who otherwise might not show up at Rogers Arena. So we probably should expect lots of empty seats from here until the end of the season.

The last time the Canucks were truly rebuilding was 1999. And in terms of officially announced crowds, the woeful Grizzlies still managed to out-draw their hockey cousins.

According to a 1999 article by my former colleague Howard Tsumura, halfway through the season, the Grizz were averaging 16,469, more than 1,000 fans more than the Canucks. The icemen were pulling in 15,436 per night.

Might the Whitecaps dig into the end of the Canucks’ season? That’s also possible, as the footballers have five home games before the end of the hockey season.

Either way, this is going to be tough sledding for Canucks fans. We’ll try to find some fun things for you to think about along the way.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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Canucks: Expect more empty seats at Rogers Arena

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