We don’t have anything, and won’t if we don’t get 3000 season ticket holders.

This isn’t being dramatic. It’s reality. We all need to get going now.

For the past year, many of you have asked “what can I do to help bring another team to Worcester?” Well, now is the time. It’s time for ALL of us.

I understand that many of you could not make the press conference/rally or meeting. I can recap – along with what we are being asked to do.

The city and SMG (managers of the DCU Center) have been working with the AHL since we all found out that we were losing the IceCats. They took our surveys as to what we wanted, what would work here. They went to the business, the Chamber of Commerce to find out what the issues were and what can be improved upon. When the city officials went to the AHL All Star game last year, it wasn’t just to speak with potential team which could move here. It was to speak with the entire league’s governors to ask what Worcester can do to attract a team – looking at it from all different directions.

What the city and SMG came up with was this:

The new video board (already in place).

Renovations of bathrooms and concessions.

Curtains to block off the 300’s and all but several rows of 200’s seats. (to create demand).

Sharing concession revenue with the team.

Team will get 100% of all merchandise sales in the DCU Center.

The union took a 20% reduction in their rates.

The DCU Center has guaranteed 33 of 40 weekend dates available for hockey.

An enhanced lease agreement. When the lease structure was presented to the AHL for review (as in – “will this work”). The AHL came back with a resounding “YES”. They said the lease would be “more than competitive” in this market.

Getting the word out:

The Worcester Telegram ran those ads for this past meeting for free (for them - that is a BIG deal).

Beginning next week, the media blitz starts.  You will hear 10 and 30 seconds spots on the radio – WTAG, WXLO, WSRS, The Fox, The Pike, and I think I’m forgetting some. Charter and WTAG will be talking this whole drive up as well right up until the end – 12/31.

As you can see, the city and SMG are stepping up BIG TIME.

IT IS NOW OUR TURN.

We are being asked – (practically begged) to help in making this season ticket drive successful. They’ve put together ideas of things we can do – as well as a very important Telemarketing Drive to call past season ticket holders and businesses to pledge. All we need to do is show up to the DCU Center and man the phones, and make the calls. This is over the span of 2 days.

Tuesday November 29^th from 1PM to 4PM and 5PM to 8PM

Wednesday November 30^th from 1PM to 4PM and 5PM to 8PM

Please volunteer to help!

Call 508-755-6800 or email me at saveourhockey@aol.com for more info.

Sure, maybe calling people isn’t your thing, but 3 hours of your time for at least 5 more years of AHL hockey? The decision is easy.

Now for other ideas. The DCU Center has posters, flyers, sign-up sheets, FAQ Sheets – everything you need to start your own min-drive. If you can’t make it down there – I will pick up and deliver to you myself (just email me).

Take the posters, but them up at your place of work, you school, your church, a friends business. A business your frequent often. Places were you meet for scouts, youth groups, the Y, union meeting places, bars, restaurants, or any other place you can think of. We need to SATURATE Worcester County!  It doesn’t hurt to ask someone to put the poster up. Ask your local paper or school paper to run an ad.

Go and ask your employer about setting up a signup table. The DCU Center will allow us to use the poster board with the great logo on it for signup drives. If there’s a church function, or maybe go to one of the many hockey rinks around here for the afternoon and man a table for signups. Anywhere you can think a signup drive would work. There are no wrong answers on this.

And YOU need to talk to your friends, relatives, and place of work and ask them to pledge.

People can buy tickets and donate them to charity – tax deductible.

Get a group – say from work of 20 people to put in $120 to buy 4  plegdes and then over the course of the season, raffle them off to those people who pledged.

Buy a pair of season tickets and then give out the seats as gifts.

Go to you friend’s business, or your favorite business and ask them to buy season tickets. They are always great giveaway – and with the curtain limiting seating to 6000-6500, seats will be limited.

For those stubborn that say they only make 10 games, or for those that said “I had a 20 (or a 10) flex pack but that isn’t an option with this drive, I have two solutions. 1^st, push the full season ticket. Remember, no pledge, no team! If they still don’t want to, here’s what I am setting up. A MATCH SERVICE for those who only want 10 or 20 games. Basically a time share. I will up on my website by Monday (www.saveourhockey.com) a message board, where people can post someone like “I will go in with someone on 4 tickets – I want 10 games” Or “I want 3 tickets for 20 games a piece” And hopefully, we can get other people together that want the same thing – and they can work out details – and signup! So spread the word on that.

This should be easy – there’s over 1 MILLION people in a 25 mile radius! All we need is 3000 Season tickets!

WE NEED TO GET THE WORD OUT!

This is not the time to be shy. We need to be aggressive (I mean just got out and ask – don’t force anyone), and go out and solicit as much as we can! And when you ask others to pledge, ask them if they can help just as much as you are>

We can’t look around for others to do this work for us! If you just sit back and watch, you could be watching the LAST chance for hockey in Worcester. It is all up to US FANS now! The city and SMG have done and are doing their part. It is up to step up. ASAP! Time is something we don’t have.

If you have questions, either call the DCU Center at the number above or email me. If you aren’t sure how to go about approaching people, there are people that can help you get started! Work as team if need be. Buddy up and solicit pledges.

We are a forest. But we need each individual tree to do its part.

I forgot - this isn't a Worcester thing. This is a Worcester COUNTY thing. So don't just think of the city, but anywhere in Worcester County.

Speed count me in for some signs and marketing material, about twenty of everything. I know you have my e-mail so let me know were they can be picked up, as I have few good contacts.

Thats a great Idea about your Match Program for Flex pack past ticket owners and if you can get the word out and market it, and get the DCU support to make it work, will help in raching the 3,000 season ticket goal, or GOAL I should say...

128A

Do we just show up on 11/29 to help with the phone calls or should we notify someone of time(s) we can make it?

I take the commuter rail from Natick in and out of Boston nearly every day. Many of these trains depart from and go to Worcester. I would be happy to leave flyers anywhere I could each day if I could get some! In that vein, if someone could leave a bunch on the seats IN WORCESTER before the trains leave, that might be even better.

How many tickets has SMG agreed to BUY, how about teh city or the T&G. SMG and the city are the reason we no longer have hockey here. Now they want the fans who did support hockey WHEN IT WAS HERE to bail them out. SMG is obviously getting presure from DCU to get something going. Has DCU pledged to buy tickets yet. The key is to get the corporate world involved here. They are the ones who will make the difference and can purchase blocks of season tickets, 2 or 3.  Before I would agree to purchase anythink I want to know what it will cost for an adult ticket or a childs ticket. Where exactly the prefered seating. I had three season tickets for many years and would love to see a team here again. I do not however feel it is my responsibility to pledge to finance it. Perhaps 600 a ticket it too steep for me and I only can afford to attend 20 games this year. There are a lot of very avid fans who are not season ticket holders. The nights there were 10000 in teh stands only 2500 or so were season ticket holders the rest were fans that were enticed to come by other means. The DCU needs to clean up their act if they want to attract a serious crowd on a regular basis. Security badgering fans for nothing is not condusive to having people return for more games

Seeing as I busted Speed about adding stuff, I now feel the need to add something.

We can't sit around and hope that someone else does all the work to help bring a team here. For the better part of the last year there wasn't much that most people really could have done outside of writing letters and generally being heard about our desire to bring a team here. Well, now is the time we all need to step up and prove that our words were not empty--that we're willing to show that we really do want AHL hockey to come back to Worcester.

Speed and I have done a lot of work to help bring a team here, but now it's up to you.

All it takes is a bunch of people to say "I want a team" and to go to http://www.worcesterhockey.com and pledge just one ticket. And after you do that tell a friend.

This is our chance folks...let's not blow it.

I have contacted my area Parks & Recreation Department and their Director sent an email out to the many residents on her email list regarding our Pledge Drive!  I'm also going to contact the editor of my daughter's school newsletter and ask if we can put something in there announcing our efforts!  

Any little bit helps!  Do whatever you can!  I know Speed and 210 have been breaking their backs to bring AHL hockey back to Worcester!  They have given up more of their personal time to see this project thru and I sincerely appreciate it!

For the hundredth time, I would just like to say THANK YOU to Speed and 210!  Also a big thank you needs to go out to Judi, Chris and everyone else who cares enough to do this for the City of Worcester and we fans!

I'm trying to do my part (working full-time and raising a 9 year old takes most of my time) but this is too important to me and a lot of other people to just sit back and let everyone else do the work! 

Thank you to everyone who is doing their part!  We appreciate your time and efforts!!

The Toomey Family

Hey "A Fan". You're dumping on SMG, the DCU staff, the city, and all of us who want hockey back here without having your facts straight. You obviously were not at the volunteer meeting or you would know what all these groups have done and are continuing to do. There is a big push going on in the business community. Investments are being being made to improve the building.

And nobody can answer the question of exact pricing, etc. because there isn't a team yet. And there will never be one unless fan base support is proven. That's what this drive is all about.

Not everybody can afford full season tickets and not everyone wants to go to that many games. But we need a base of 3000 seats to make this go financially. Maybe you can find a few friends to split a season ticket. If not, at least be encouraging of those who are working to bring a team here rather than bad mouthing them.

P.S. If you want to be taken seriously, post with a registered email.

And for the 100th time I will say "you're welcome" to JamePollockFan... ;)

Seems like some get it and some don't. To those who do get it- good for you and keep up the hard work. To those who don't get it, you need to realize the opportunity we've been given- an opportunity we weren't given last year. I'll say it again: the city did their homwork, now it's on us. A simple question everyone needs to ask each day:

What did I do today? What did I do to help get a team back? If the answer is "nothing" you better get back on your horse. If you did something like JPFan- post it so others have some more ideas of what they can do.

I made 14 phone calls tonight and went on windshield duty at two grocery store parking lots. It takes 8 cents to photocopy the poseter from the DCU Center at Staples. It doesn't cost much and you can cover a huge parking lot. That was my idea for the day. Go for it.

As for new ideas, can the boy/girl scouts help in any way?  They seem to alwasy have those special nights at the games...how about them helping out and they can have their special nights back again!  I don't know any one in them, mabey someone does?

The DCU Center has a list of former season ticket holders that they need help contacting.

Pick up a list or some flyers from the DCU Center and post 'em EVERYWHERE.  Make copies and put them on windshields at church, school, grocery store, etc.

And mostly, DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT THE DRIVE.  Drive all your friends, family, coworkers, church goers, golf club, poker buddies, neighbors MAD talking about it all the time!  Give them the options listed here, www.saveourhockey.com and www.worcesterhockey.com FAQ.

This is not difficult, and is not that much effort on an individual basis; but all of it together will make a very big difference.

Judi

"A Fan" - I try and explain the best I can. Since you are obviously bitter, I don't know what good it is but I think people need to know more about what the city and SMG are actually doing.

Is the city buying tickets? Yes. Mike Perotto bought a pair right away and challenged the rest of the city council to do so as well. If you are concerned about it - why not ask your city councilors - better yet - why don't we all call them and ask if they bought tickets yet? I'm sure most have, but not all. So let's put pressure on these folks to do this.

Is SMG buying tickets? Yes. A matter of fact, one person made a point of saying that at meeting last week (did you go?). They know that their jobs depend on it.

SMG union taking a 20% rate cut? When have you heard of a union volunteering to take a cut in pay?

Regardless of their motives - the question you have to ask is - "Do you want AHL hockey back here". What the city, SMG, or businesses did or did not do is in the past. They have learned - repeat - truly learned that they didn't pay attention/took the IceCats and its fans for granted in the past. They have flat out said this.

The city and SMG are redoing the bathrooms and concessions (I think concessions - not sure but definately bathrooms). They went to the league, they went to the various AHL teams and asked what Worcester needs to do to bring AHL hockey back. We have new blood in charge of the city, new blood in charge of the chamber of commerce. They are on board. They are making a huge push. Corporate/businesses are saying - if there's a fan base - we will come. Hey it's chicken or the egg theory. Do we buy tickets if there's enough business support, or do the businesses ponty up money if there's fanbase support? Well, we need both!

Nothing has been determined about preffered seating. There may or may not be any! If its that much of any issue (and with some it is) - you need to make that heard to the city and SMG. They can pass this on to whoever comes in here, and they can decide what to do. Same with ticket prices. Nobody knows right now how much they will be. My bet is that they will be lower that $600. Probably not the $490 we had before, but that is to be expected based on 2 years of inflation and the dollars needed for this market to sustain a team.

Read the top of this thread again. Maybe it will set in a little bit more now. Everyone is trying. The past is the past and the future is for all of us. Whatever the motive of others are.

If you can only afford 20 games, then go to saveourhockey.com and find a buddy to partner up with.

As far as security goes, well that is a beef with SMG. I can tell you that by us doing our part alongside of SMg and the city, us fans are building a working relationship that wasn't there before.

Either you're in or you're out. I can't convince you, but you need to know that all sides are trying....

To  "A FAN"

Go to saveourhockey.com as "Speed" is taking pledges less than Full Season and trying to find a way at this point to get everyone committed that had the 20 game flex packs before.

Hopefully you could pledge one or more season ticket at this point as you sound like you were a great fan of the team and we need your help and support to bring in a new AHL Team.

128A