Here’s a question: How dare the Canadiens charge ridiculously high and always increasing prices? Regular families are being priced out and it’s a damn shame. Between this and no more Hockey Night in Canada on CBC, they’re hijacking the national sport! I may be a little dramatic, but it still sucks.
Claude Rivest
It does suck for regular families that the Canadiens’ ticket prices — and prices for all pro sports — have risen so dramatically over the years. But it’s the reality of a supply-and-demand market.
Why do the Canadiens charge so much for tickets?
Because they can — and there are enough fans willing to pay those prices.
The Canadiens sold all 20,962 seats for every game last season and I expect it will be the same this season.
When the Canadiens moved from the Forum to the Bell Centre (then the Molson Centre) in 1996, a buddy of mine and I had a mini season-ticket package that season. By the luck of the draw, we had tickets for the first game at the Molson Centre — a 4-2 win over the New York Rangers on March 16, 1996. Our tickets, in Section 326 in a corner of the upper deck, cost $33. Tickets in that section for the Canadiens’ home opener this season on Oct. 6 against the Carolina Hurricanes were listed at $261.36 on the team’s website Friday. Tickets in Section 326 for the Canadiens’ second home game on Oct. 8 against the Nashville Predators were listed at $160.65.
I still have my ticket stub from the Canadiens’ first game at the Molson Centre (now the Bell Centre) — a 4-2 win over the New York Rangers on March 16, 1996. Prices were a lot cheaper back then. #Habs pic.twitter.com/uybbKiE114
— Stu Cowan (@StuCowan1) September 25, 2026
During the 1995-96 season, Pierre Turgeon was the highest-paid player on the Canadiens, with a salary of US$3 million, while goalie Patrick Roy was earning US$2.66 million. Wayne Gretzky was the highest-paid player in the NHL that season, earning US$6.5 million. This season, Noah Dobson will be the highest-paid player on the Canadiens, with a salary-cap hit of US$9.5 million, and the Anaheim Ducks’ Leo Carlsson will be the NHL’s highest-paid player, with a salary-cap hit of US$18 million.
Rising player salaries — along with overall inflation — mean soaring ticket prices. The Canadiens also receive Canadian money on ticket sales and pay players in U.S. dollars.
As for Hockey Night in Canada, I was surprised when Sportsnet left it with CBC in 2013 after paying $5.2 billion to the NHL for the national TV rights for 12 years. I wasn’t surprised when Sportsnet decided to keep the prime-time Saturday games for itself after agreeing to a new 12-year deal with the NHL worth $11 billion that kicks in this season and runs through the 2037-38 season. Sportsnet has spent billions for the NHL and, obviously, wants to earn a profit from the deal.
Pro sports are big business and as long as there are enough fans willing to pay the ticket prices, they won’t come down. As in any business, supply and demand set the prices.
On the bright side, Canadiens practices at the CN Sports Complex in Brossard are open to the public for no charge and there’s free parking.
They’re also fun to watch.
Why do the Habs want Chris Kreider instead of Brendan Gallagher? Now they want net-front presence after not even giving Gallagher a chance? Are there too many teams in the league focusing on profits for fans to stand behind players or home teams?
ChurchofHz on X — @theChurchofhz
I love Brendan Gallagher as a hockey player and I’m sure most Canadiens fans feel the same way. He gave everything he had during every shift of his 14 seasons with the team and it took a toll on his 5-foot-9, 185-pound body.
Even the biggest Gallagher fan would have to admit the 34-year-old had lost a step and was having a hard time keeping up with the pace of a young Canadiens team. I still felt Gallagher deserved to be in the lineup for the Canadiens’ final playoff game last season against the Carolina Hurricanes and he was very upset that he wasn’t, which led to him being traded to the Vancouver Canucks.
Kreider is a year older than Gallagher, but still has very good speed. At 6-foot-3 and 232 pounds, he also has size and has scored at least 20 goals in each of the last eight seasons, including 22 last season, when Gallagher had seven. As for going to the net, Kreider leads the NHL in tip-in goals during the last five seasons with 25.
The Canadiens are focused on winning — which would also mean more profits — and Kreider gives them a better chance of doing that at this point than Gallagher. I think most fans would agree and they also want the Canadiens to win.
Having said that, I wish Gallagher all the best in Vancouver. You know he will give everything he has on every shift.
Canadiens winger Patrick Laine skates to the faceoff circle during game against the Winnipeg Jets in Montreal on Jan. 28, 2025. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
I’m still curious about Patrik Laine. What’s he doing? Does he hang with the Canadiens? Will he ever play?
Suzanne Norman
Laine became an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and no longer has any connection to the Canadiens after playing only five games last season before having surgery to repair a core muscle injury.
The team was unable to deal a healthy Laine at last season’s trade deadline and no NHL team has offered him a contract as a free agent. It certainly looks like his NHL career could be over at age 28.
Laine’s wife, Jordan Leigh, is very active on social media and posted photos this week on Facebook from South Beach in Miami, writing: “We still don’t know what life will look like this season but I decided to go to the beach and enjoy it anyway. Here’s your reminder that you’re allowed to live your life while it’s getting figured out.”
Do you think there is much of a market out there for a possible Kirby Dach trade?
Naoya Kusano on X — @NaoyaK250
I don’t think so — not for an injury-prone player who has missed more games than he has played during the last four years, had 8-7-15 totals in 37 games last season and has a US$3.6 million salary-cap hit this season.
Dach is in a struggle just to keep a spot with the Canadiens at training camp and, as I noted in last week’s Habs Mailbag, it wouldn’t come as a shock if he was sent down to the AHL’s Laval Rocket at some point if he doesn’t perform, like what happened with Joel Armia at the start of the 2023-24 season. Dach would have to clear NHL waivers for that to happen, just like Armia did.
This will be a make-or-break season for the 25-year-old Dach, who can become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
I am happy that Cale Makar was able to negotiate the NHL’s highest future average annual value with his eight-year, US$163.2-million contract extension that kicks in next season with an annual salary-cap hit of US$20.4 million. Every professional athlete should get whatever he/she can. Careers are short and unpredictable.
So, now that Makar has established this new benchmark, can we please, please stop the comparisons to Bobby Orr? Makar is an exceptional defenceman/player, but he is no Bobby Orr. The rules have changed considerably and what Orr went through would have been a huge challenge to Makar and one that he doesn’t have to deal with now.
Vince De Zorzi
I agree with you. Cale Makar is a great player with the Colorado Avalanche, but he is not Bobby Orr.
I still believe Orr was the greatest player to ever play the game and the late, great Red Fisher felt the same way.
“Orr is the best hockey player I have ever seen, offensively and defensively,” Fisher, who died in 2018 at age 91 after 57 years of covering the Canadiens and the NHL, told me when we were working together at The Gazette. “He was somethin’ else. He’d carry the puck all the way to the other blue line and, if for some strange reason he lost the puck, he was waiting for you by the time you came to his blue line with the puck. Not only was he the best two-way player, he was also one of the five toughest guys and among the top five fighters in the league when he had to.”
Fighting is not something Makar has to worry about, while Orr was regularly challenged by players dropping the gloves.
“When people ask me about Orr and what made him so great, all I tell them is that I only saw the guy 14 times a year, plus the playoffs, but he pulled me out of my seat more than any player I ever watched,” said Fisher, who ranked Wayne Gretzky No. 2 and Mario Lemieux No. 3. “I don’t have any beef with anybody who picks Gretzky first or Lemieux second, but as far as I’m concerned, Orr is the best I’ve ever seen and he always will be.”
Orr remains the only defenceman to ever win the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leading scorer, doing it twice. He won the Norris Trophy eight times as the best defenceman. He is the only player to ever win the Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Norris Trophy, Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in the same year, accomplishing that feat in 1969-70.
Orr also holds one of the most incredible records in the NHL, which will never be broken, posting a plus-124 differential during the 1970-71 season, when he had 37-102-139 totals and won the Hart Trophy and Norris Trophy. Orr finished second in NHL scoring that season behind Boston Bruins teammate Phil Esposito, who had 76-76-152 totals and was plus-69.
The Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon led the NHL last season at plus-57 and Makar was plus-32.
Since we started this Habs Mailbag talking about money, Orr also became the NHL’s first million-dollar player when he signed a five-year, US$1-million contract with the Bruins in summer 1971 that paid him an average of $200,000 per season.
Classic Auctions had a couple of ticket stubs from Bruins games from the 1970-71 season on its website this month. The face value of the loge tickets was $6.25. The minimum bid for those tickets was US$100.
If you have a question you’d like to ask for the weekly Habs Mailbag, you can email it to montrealcanadiens@postmedia.com
I grew up dreaming of being an NHL defenceman or an MLB pitcher, but that didn’t happen. Fortunately, I was able to find another path to work in sports and have been part of The Gazette sports department since the early 1980s, including a 12-year stint as sports editor before becoming sports columnist in 2015. It’s a great job and I’m a lucky guy.
scowan@postmedia.com
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