Blues reward persistence
The Blues goaltending situation has turned into quite an adventure this season. While Manny Legace has provided everything the team hoped for, little else has gone right at this position.
Jason Bacashihua didn’t run with his opportunity to back up Legace this season. Marek Scwarz failed to build upon his encouraging rookie season in the AHL.
European veteran Juuso Riksman was also expected to compete for the back-up job. But he struggled through the summer camp, prompting John Davidson and Larry Pleau to explore other options.
The Blues acquired Hannu Toivonen from the Bruins to settle the position. After an encouraging start to the season, Toivonen fell into a disastrous funk. Poor mechanics, flagging confidence and accumulated rust turned him into a most unreliable netminder.
Meanwhile, Bacashihua departed for the Colorado organization in a trade, Riksman went to a European team on a loan, Schwarz struggled at Peoria, Riksman returned from Europe and then left again . . . it was all a big mess.
Fortunately, the Rivermen had signed Chris Beckford-Tseu to an AHL contract after the Blues let him go. Beckford-Tseu returned from Alaska of the ECHL to save the day — and now he is a Blue, freshly signed to a NHL contract.
His promotion sent a strong signal to everybody in the organization: The Blues will seek the best solutions to their problems, regardless of draft history or contract status.
The Blues hope that Beckford-Tseu will provide more competent back-up support of Legace while Toivonen works through his troubles in the AHL. This may be his only shot to establish himself, since top prospect Ben Bishop is likely to sign out of college later this spring and jump right into the AHL fray.
Beckford-Tseu has to work his way into the picture, just as Curtis Sanford did before him. Legace had to battle his way into the NHL as well. Both navigated difficult paths to reach their goal. They are good examples for Chris to follow.
In the meantime, the Blues hope that Toivonen regains his form ASAP so that Legace doesn’t wear out playing game after game after game for the Note.
With what appears (by today’s article) an insane price increase they didn’t reward my persistence.
What are they thinking? People are just starting to come back, the economy blows, and now these crazy increases?
The boys need a reality check in their offices. At least the beer lines won’t be crowded next year.
The average increase is $1.50. Get over it, ticket prices will go up, as your salary does every year. Do you expect them to freeze ticket prices forever? These are not “insane” price increases.
your salary increases every year??
I have 3 jobs, there was a salary increase at 1 of 3 those jobs over 2 years ago.
Just talked to my rep, my cheap seats are going up $3/ticket, or over 40%.
My center Ice seats are going up between 15-20%, she said I would find out exactly when I get my letter in the next day or so.
Tell me where the $1.50 seat increases are so I can move there.
Quoting from the article:
“Some prices will increase dramatically, such as those in the first four rows from the ice. But also, the popular $7 ticket will go up to $10 next season. The Blues say the average increase per ticket will be $1.50.”
The AVERAGE cost increase is $1.50. Obviously that means some will be more, some will be less. Your “rep” should be able to tell you where the seats didn’t increase, unless she really didn’t know.
Gabe, yes, every job I’ve ever had (even as a bagger at Dierberg’s) raised my wage every year. My point was, everything increases in price over time. You can’t expect the Blues to keep the same ticket prices forever. Raising the prices slightly (if the story printed in the Post is correct) is not unexpected and not “insane” or “crazy.” From the article it sounds to me that as long you don’t have the cheapest or most expensive seats, you shouldn’t see much of a change. I guess we’ll see when the actual numbers are published.
Actually my “account executive”, couldn’t tell me where seats were at 0 increase, or a $1.00, or a $1.50. She explained to me that the average is $1.50 despite increases up to 45% in some areas, because they lowered the price of 500 seats by $4.00 a game.
She said the averege increase “without the BS” (that is a quote) is about 20%, so even if my center ice seats went up by 20%, I am still one of the luck ones, as it is much lower than more than half of the other season ticket holders. She isn’t a mathmetician obviously, but she is almost honest at least. She also told me she could not tell me the exact price as she is running around today answering questions, so the fastest way to see what the increase is is through my renewal letter.
I have had a ticket package of varying size for close to 12 years, I may not year.
Nice time they gave us to make the first payment too. They are out of touch.
BTW Dan, when did they freeze them. They rolled the price back, like Bush pulled troops out. Raise the price 25%, then lower them 8%, guess what that is and 8.5% increase per year, far out pacing inflation and most every other increase you have.
Are you a season ticket holder, or employee?
Jack…
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work at home business opportunity…
Do you have any further information on this topic?…
Obviously the numbers don’t jive if that’s what your rep is telling you. I would be interested once you get your renewal letter what the increase in price was for you. With those types of percentage increases (20 to 45%), I don’t know how 500 seats at $4 less will give you an average of $1.50 increase per ticket. Something doesn’t make sense.
Anyway, I’m not an employee or season ticket holder. I’m just a Blues fan through and through and I fully support what this mgmt team is doing. I expect ticket price increases from time to time. From the article it sounded like a reasonable raise in ticket prices.