COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Samantha and Tanner Plishka left Raleigh, N.C., on the morning of Dec. 20, their holiday spirits were buoyed by what awaited them at the end of an eight-hour drive to Pittsburgh: two tickets on the glass for their first-ever game inside PPG Paints Arena.
Tanner was stoked. He planned to wear the Sidney Crosby Stadium Series jersey that Samantha had bought him.
By the time they checked into their $180 room at the downtown Omni William Penn Hotel, however, the two Penguins fans were stunned to learn that the Dec. 21 game against the Devils had been postponed over COVID-19 concerns. Tanner had used vacation days from his job at Fidelity Investments to make the trip, which was part of a birthday gift from his wife.
Samantha had followed the news closely. She knew the latest wave in the global pandemic had created an uptick in cases and had forced sporting events to be rescheduled. That’s why she waited until Dec. 19 — the night the Penguins and Devils played in New Jersey — to purchase two tickets for a combined $374.73. It wasn't the first the virus had cost them a chance to see Crosby.
“Fun fact: We had tickets for the Penguins game in Carolina on March 14, 2020,” Tanner said.
That game was never played because the NHL halted the regular season two days earlier due to the arrival of the coronavirus in the United States. At least the Plishkas were able to get a refund for that cancelled contest. The one against the Devils is likely to be rescheduled, meaning the couple would have to make another trip to Pittsburgh — necessitating more time off from work and additional hotel expenses and gas money.
Tanner said he'll probably pass and, in the meantime, do his best to recoup at least some of Samantha's initial investment in the secondary ticket market. He’s hardly alone.
Sports fans and entertainment enthusiasts, who thought it was finally safe again to purchase tickets in advance, are being blindsided by a raft of postponements as the Omicron variant rages through North America. Headlines are filled with athletes being placed in COVID-19 protocols. At last one college football bowl game has been cancelled.
Because of its stricter guidelines, some intertwined with Canadian governmental policies, the NHL has postponed 80 games this season, including the past five involving the Penguins. For a gate-driven league that went about a calendar year with few or no fans in the arenas, it represents the latest hammer blow to franchises' bottom lines.
It’s being felt in Pittsburgh as the Penguins’ 14-year sellout streak, spanning 633 games, ended in October. The NFL and NBA have adjusted their COVID regulations to minimize the chance of postponements. The NHL is scrambling to follow their lead, although Canada’s firmer measures complicate efforts.
However, it’s stories like that of Samantha and Tanner that are cause for concern for the sports and entertainment industry in the coming weeks. Fans who are not season-ticket holders often purchase in advance of the games.
DK Pittsburgh Sports corresponded with about a dozen fans to gauge their willingness to buy tickets for upcoming events that could end up being postponed. Most of them held tickets to last week's Penguins games that were not played. Some said they would continue to purchase tickets. Others are adopting a wait-and-see approach, which could lead to more empty seats and lost revenues.
“For me, I will be waiting until the league has a better plan or until COVID seems to be more under control before I purchase tickets again,” said Tanner, 28. “An eight-hour drive just to have to turn around, not see my first game at PPG, and be out a couple hundred dollars was not a fun experience. I, of course, want everyone to be safe, but as a fan buying tickets, who is there to reimburse me on my tickets or hotel? Heck, even my PTO days at work!”
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TANNER PLISHKA
Samantha and Tanner Plishka enjoyed a night in Pittsburgh even though the Penguins game they came to see was postponed.
Rob Mazzie conjures an image of what “could have been” on Dec. 23 in and around PPG Paints Arena. Penguins fans filling the downtown bars and restaurants. College kids home for the holidays walking through the turnstiles eager to see the Penguins extend their seven-game winning streak against the Flyers.
Everyone in a festive mood.
“It didn’t matter who the opponent would have been,” said Mazzie, owner of AAA Prime Time Tickets Inc. “Those games before Christmas are always a great draw, especially with so many people off the next few days.”
Instead, the arena was silent, a victim of the league’s early Christmas pause due to a spike in the virus, which according to the New York Times database produced a U.S. record seven-day average of 267,000 cases as of Tuesday.
The Penguins aren’t scheduled to resume play until Sunday when they host the Sharks. What kind of crowds they will attract over the next few weeks is anyone’s guess. Mazzie only knows the impact on his ticket brokerage, and the recent trend isn’t encouraging.
“Numbers are down,” he said. “People have really, really put on the brakes to buy for future events, especially for the next 45 days. We are usually slammed right up until Christmas Eve. Tickets are so easy to transfer now. Someone can buy a present at noon and have them in their email at 12:15 — it’s an easy last-minute gift. And I mean sales came to a halt.”
The concern over postponements — and the uncertainty regarding the makeup dates is likely fueling trepidation. Mazzie said many fans who purchase single-game tickets “buy the date, not the opponent.” Translation: It fits nicely with their work or school schedules.
That was the case with 18-year-old Caleb Frost, of Upstate New York, who had tickets for the Dec. 21 game.
“My father and I were going as part of my Christmas present,” Frost said. “The game was during my winter break from college. I doubt when the game is rescheduled I will be available due to school.”
The recent rise in postponements shattered a sense of normalcy that was beginning to return to the live sports and entertainment scene. Yes, the virus was still present, but vaccines and booster shots were helping with consumer confidence, at least in some precincts.
“We went to the Steelers game against the Chargers in Los Angeles and we felt very comfortable, it felt very natural,” said Larry Yellin, 58, a Squirrel Hill native who lives in Orange County, Calif.
Mazzie has owned his regional ticket brokerage for 28 years. The past six months had delivered record sales until about 10 days ago.
He wasn’t just seeing a greater demand for Steelers and Penguins games. It was everything related to the entertainment industry. After nearly 18 months of cancelled events and games played before limited crowds, fans were flocking to venues to rediscover the communal experience.
“Secondary theater events, concerts at small venues, it didn’t matter,” Mazzie said. “People just wanted to get out again and enjoy themselves.”
Mikki Rykaceski, 51, who had seats for the Penguins game against the Flyers, is among those who said they will continue to purchase advanced tickets. It helps that she lives in Aliquippa, and she doesn’t have to worry about cancelling hotel or plane reservations. But the end of the Penguins' sellout streak has enabled her to get to more games, and she plans to take advantage of it.
Zack Miconi, 23, of Kalamazoo, Mich., echoes those sentiments.
“The (Dec. 23) game being postponed does not make me more likely to wait to purchase tickets,” said Miconi, who spent the Christmas break in Northeast Ohio with in-laws. “I want to see the event or my team play. As far as I'm concerned, if they postpone the event, they will have a makeup date announced.”
One local event drawing strong interest, Mazzie said, is the Steelers’ game against the Browns. A regular-season night game in January isn’t always an easy sell for secondary markets, but the playoff implications for both teams, coupled with the fact it could be Ben Roethlisberger’s final home game, has made it a hot ticket for Mazzie.
As for the Penguins, he’s hoping the NHL can find a way to keep games on schedule.
“If an event is postponed, you are at the mercy of the promoter to using that ticket on the makeup date,” he said. “We know we’re going to hear stories about a lot of college kids coming home for those two games before Christmas. It makes it tough.”
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The NFL placed 106 players on the Reserve/COVID list on Dec. 27, according to Jack Andrade, a senior researcher for NFL Media. Nearly 500 players have tested positive since Dec. 13.
And still the games rolled on with only a few being delayed by a day or two. The NFL and NBA have relaxed their COVID policies, especially in light of many vaccinated athletes showing little or no symptoms.
This week’s decision by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to cut isolation periods from 10 days to five days is being adopted by many leagues, although the NHL remains at the mercy of the Canadian government, which exercises authority over its seven teams.
Some within the NHL look enviously at what’s happening in the NFL and NBA. Contests are being played. Money is pouring into coffers. No headaches for schedule makers trying to shoehorn games into later dates.
But at what cost? Some teams with depleted lineups are severely compromised. The integrity of a few games have been called into question. Sunday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers walloped the Toronto Raptors, 144-99, in a game in which the Raptors dressed a league-minimum eight players, four reserves and four minor-leaguers.
The NHL recently opted to reinstitute taxi squads, which should decrease the likelihood of a postponements. Would some fans balk at buying tickets to contests bereft of regulars in the lineup?
The integrity-of-games issue provided plenty of divided opinion.
“I’m a Penguins snob,” Matt Drakeley, 34, of Charleston, S.C., said. “I want to see the big guns out there. I’d rather see high-caliber players than watch minor leaguers.”
Nicholas Karas, 34, of West Springfield, Mass., agreed. He attended a Boston Celtics-Milwaukee Bucks game recently and was gutted to learn Giannis Antentokounpo was a late scratch from the Bucks lineup because he had tested positive for the virus.
“When I buy a ticket to go see a game for a certain price, you are paying for the experience as well as the performance from world-class athletes,” Karas said. “I think the NHL is doing the right thing, whereas the NBA is not. The well being of the players needs to be considered first, and even though I didn’t get to see my first game in Pittsburgh last week, I’m grateful I didn’t spend hundreds of dollars to go watch two AHL teams play one another.”
Others contend that injury and illness have been part of sports long before the pandemic reached our shores.
“I am 100 percent on board with mirroring what the NBA is currently doing,” Tanner Plishka said. “There is no perfect answer for how to move forward, but I fear we hit a point where so many games have been postponed (that) the NHL starts thinking about shortening the season. Bad enough that the NHL pulled out of the Olympics for what I imagine is due to having to already make up so many games.”
Matt Vogt, 31, of Indianapolis, is a longtime Pittsburgh fan who’s headed to the West Coast next month with family members to see three Penguins games. He cheers for the black-and-gold sweaters, not the players wearing them.
“Sports is such a great distraction from what’s going on in COVID-times,” Vogt said. “If we go to a game, and it’s full of taxi-squad players, I’m there rooting for the logo and the Penguins. I just want to see live sports as long as it’s safe to play the games.”
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LARRY YELLIN
Larry Yellin in Los Angeles for a Steelers game with his wife, Kris, and their daughters Eliana, Sami and Kit.
Larry Yellin and three family members are supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh on Saturday. They are scheduled to see the Penguins play the Sharks on Sunday and the Blues on Wednesday.
He can’t wait to get back among his native Yinzers. Yellin is also glad he purchased refundable airline tickets.
“I no longer have a fear of places,” Yellin said. “Now, it’s more of a fear of inconvenience. You’re just not sure if the game is going to be called off. I’m hoping we can see games while we’re there. I’d love it if (Evgeni) Malkin played, but I really just want to see the Penguins again.”
Adversity never leaves us where it finds us. The world and, by extension, the sports community has been changed by the pandemic. The hard feelings on either side of arguments about vaccines and mandates likely will last long after the virus abates.
Among the things uniting us is a passion for the games and feelings of normalcy that come with sitting inside crowded stadiums and soaking up the atmosphere.
Tanner and Samantha Plishka just long for the day when they can buy Penguins tickets, get in their car and drive from Raleigh with confidence knowing there’s two seats on the glass waiting for them.
After all, Tanner can’t wait for fans at PPG Paints Arena to see his Crosby jersey:
