Attendance slump for 67's a call to action for OSEG

The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group has had its hands full in the past several years. Now it needs to figure out how to fill all of the empty seats at Ottawa 67's games.

OSEG rebuilt and revitalized a stagnant stadium and arena and created a quasi village at a site where parking lots and green space had sat underutilized, all while creating two professional sports franchises.

In the process, according to chief financial officer Mark Goudie, it allowed the hullabaloo over its flagship CFL franchise, the Redblacks, to cast a shadow on its other teams, especially the Ottawa 67's of the Ontario Hockey League.

As a result, attendance for 67's games has plummeted: from more than 9,000 in 2004 to a low of 3,484 in 2015, the lowest mark since before owner Jeff Hunt bought the team.

"The 67's really haven't had their time in the spotlight and that's hopefully changing with the 2017-2018 season, the 50th anniversary and all of the things we have planned for this year … But it's going to be a multi-year thing to get it back to where it needs to be," Goudie said.

Part of the problem, he said, is that OSEG had a lot to juggle for a company that, a few years ago, employed just a dozen people. The number of employees has ballooned to 140, said Goudie, who happens to be the nephew of Howard Darwin, the longtime owner of the 67's who sold the team to Jeff Hunt in the late 1990s. 

Hunt, now an OSEG co-owner and the corporate face of both the Redblacks and 67's, led the team through a decade or more of near-dominant attendance numbers in the OHL, transforming the game-day experience into a family-friendly extravaganza.

But despite the game-day fun, attendance has dropped off in recent years, with the first big drop occurring in 2012, when the team was forced to play two seasons at the Canadian Tire Centre while Lansdowne was under construction. 

The 67's used to routinely attract more than 9,000 fans to the arena at Lansdowne, a time when the city had a more emotional attachment to the junior hockey team.

50th anniversary season

"That's something I think we used to have with the 67's, certainly back when Jeff took over the team and that's where we got to get back to," said Goudie. 

One way of rekindling that attachment is by inviting former star players back to the arena, and reviving memories of the team's glory days, he said. So despite a slow start, the team said it's seeing a boost in recent games as it continues to promote its 50th anniversary season with those special tribute games and promotions. 

The team also sits in second spot in its division, with a new coaching staff and front office.

The highest-attended game so far, excluding this week's school day game at the CTC, is 5,386.

Paid attendance, according to OSEG, is now up 20 per cent so far this season over last. And the 67's have also seen an increase of 62 per cent in what they call casual sales this year over last year.