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The Toronto Maple Leafs have iced some brutal NHL teams over the years, but fans would always flock to the arena and overpay for tickets. However, the club’s recent lack of success if finally hitting them where it hurts, which is in the pocket book. Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) never had to worry how bad the on-ice product was as they’d sell out their home games regardless. That trend recently came to an end tough in late March.

The official attendance at the Leafs game against the Minnesota Wild was listed at 18,366. However, there were thousands of empty seats as this figure refers to tickets sold rather than how many fans bothered to show up. Of course, with fewer tickets being sold it mean the Air Canada Centre will be selling fewer $15 beers, $12 hot dogs and $5 bottles of water etc. In fact, this was the lowest official attendance sine the Leafs moved into their new rink 16 years ago. The official capacity of the arena is 19,800, but this is often higher due to the luxury suites.

Others to be hit hard by the sudden lack of interest in the team include ticket scalpers and third-party ticket-selling sites such as StubHub. Fans could have bought a pair of seats for the game against Minnesota for a measly $29 on StubHub and for $35 for the game against the Florida Panthers three days later. The Leafs were beaten 2-1 by Minnesota and 4-1 by Florida and as of March 29 had a record of 26-42-6 for 62 points. This was good for 27th place in the 30-team league and the playoffs of course are out of the question.

Some Leafs’ fans have shown their disgust with MLSE this season by throwing team sweaters on the ice during games while other fans are hoping they finish as low as possible in the standings to earn a higher draft pick. The club has made several trades during the season as a way to get rid of bad contracts and players have become so frustrated they’ve even had a couple of fights between teammates during practices. The Leafs have won about eight games in their past 40 contests and have been sinking like a stone.

MLSE is used to seeing half-empty stadiums at Toronto FC games as they also own the terrible MLS club as well as the better-than-average Toronto Raptors of the NBA. But even though MLSE said it isn’t going to raise ticket prices for the Leafs next season the ownership group stuck it to the poor fans anyway by jacking up the prices to Raptors games.