Season ticket holders are pissed...and rightfully so!

Was out at lunch today and tuned into 1460 the fan and to my suprise, they were actually talking some Blue Jackets hockey.

Of course I should have known it couldn't have been positive...after a few seconds it was obvious the boys were once again ripping the Jackets -- this time, over Rob Oller's column in the Columbus Dispatch concerning the Jackets decision to only gurantee season ticket holders their seats for the playoffs if they renew their tickets by March 7th, 2008.

My first response to the article - who knew Rob Oller knew anything about the Jackets? Then of course some scribes not named Portzline, Reed or Arace only write about the Jackets when they have shots to take.

To be honest though, in this case these guys do have a point. The Jackets are on the playoff bubble for the first time in their 7 year existance. Quite truthfully they don't have a very good shot to get in and at the first sniff this is the approach they take with their bread and butter?

I don't get it.

Actually strike that -- I do get it. Its a business decision and they are using what leverage they do have to get early renewals for next year. This is how *most* NHL teams handle the playoffs so its nothing really out of the ordinary.

Does it make it right? Absolutely not.

What they don't get is they are cutting off their nose despite their face. The fans that are still here have renewed through 6 horrible seasons -- why strong arm them? If they haven't left yet I doubt they'd leave just when things are finally starting to go in the right direction.

Every caller I heard today on that show was pissed. I mean flat out friggan mad. Fed up. I heard 4 alleged season ticket holders call in and say that was it -- they are done. This was the last straw.

Now sure the knee-jerk reaction is to throw your hands up in the air....but if the Jackets do somehow back in to the playoffs.....or if they do make some big name acquisitions in the offseason...some fans will forgive and come back...but some may not.

...but for now, the Jackets certainly aren't making things any easier on themselves. Instead of endearing themselves to these fans who watched a lemon for 6 years...its the Jackets' management (looking at your Mr. Priest) who are turning their most loyal fans into lemons and trying to squeeze out every ounce of juice out of them they can get.

If the Jackets are smart they go into damage control mode right now, today, and re-think this policy asap. I think every season single season ticket holder deserves a phone call and an apology.

Maybe after a few years of being a contender with strong demand and ticket sales an approach like this may work. For now though, these fans should be treated like gold especially in a league that relies so much on ticket sales for its revenue.

To strong arm any season ticket holder with the state this franchise in is bad business and quite frankly could be a costly mistake.

This franchise is quickly approaching the point where there just isn't any more room for costly mistakes.

-LTL