Free Montreal Canadiens watch party tickets hit resale market
Canadiens fans are “now having to pay” to attend playoff watch parties advertised as free after “resellers snapped up limited tickets and listed them for sale on Facebook,” according to Jack Wilson of the MONTREAL GAZETTE. The Canadiens are holding watch parties outside the Bell Centre next week for the first two home games in the playoff series against the Lightning. However, the event will “only be open to fans who secured tickets online.” Canadiens fan David Dubé said that the free tickets the team issued were “snapped up in seconds.” He added that “soon after the sale closed, ‘some people were trying to resell them.’” Wilson noted a listing on Facebook Marketplace “offers four of the supposedly free tickets for $75 each.” A screenshot circulating online shows another listing “offering two tickets at $50 each.” In Facebook groups dedicated to resales, fans are “asking for tickets to the event, with others offering to sell them” (MONTREAL GAZETTE, 4/15).
LONG AWAITED: In Montreal, Brendan Kelly wrote it is “impossible to exaggerate the level of excitement among Habs fans only days ahead of the start of the first round of the playoffs.” Fans are “just so pumped to finally have a team that is at the very least in the conversation as a team that might win something in the post-season.” Kelly: “I don’t think it’s going too far to suggest that the start of these playoffs is generating more buzz than at any other time since 1993. … This is the greatest moment for fans since the last year the Canadiens won the Cup.” (MONTREAL GAZETTE, 4/15).
