More than 1,500 tickets were listed as available for the Edmonton Oilers’ 2026-27 home opener at Rogers Place, a week before the team begins its NHL season. Ticketmaster’s count for the Sept. 29 game against the Vancouver Canucks did not include resale tickets, and its app showed unsold seats in both the upper and lower bowls of the arena, which has a hockey capacity of 18,500.

The availability extended across most of the Oilers’ October home schedule, including games against the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes on Oct. 22 and the Calgary Flames on Oct. 28. The exception was the Oct. 24 Saturday-night game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, which Ticketmaster showed as close to a sellout. Last season, Edmonton averaged more than 18,300 fans per game, and sellouts are generally expected in the city.

The contrast comes as the NHL reported record attendance at the end of the 2025-26 season. The league’s 32 arenas operated at 97.5 per cent of capacity over the campaign. Oilers Entertainment Group spokesman Kevin Rapanos said the team was not especially concerned by the available seats at this point in the run-up to the opener.

“We continue to see strong demand for tickets, consistent with where we have been at this point heading into past seasons, and we’re confident Rogers Place will be sold out for the Oilers home opener on Sept. 29,” Rapanos said. The team was scheduled to hold a select-a-seat event on Sept. 26 for people considering season tickets.

Ticket prices and secondary-market listings varied. Ticketmaster listed lower-bowl seats near centre ice at face value for $480.45, while an individual ticket in an upper-tier corner cost $151.75. StubHub and Ticketmaster’s resale marketplace showed a few opener tickets below face value, and some upper-bowl seats for mid-October games were listed for under $100 apiece.

The ticket supply has prompted questions about why some fans who once held season tickets have chosen not to renew. Thomas Holmes and his wife, Lisa, moved downtown three years ago and decided to buy season tickets because Rogers Place was a short walk from their home. They ended the commitment this season.

“The cost was a factor,” Holmes said. He said it had become difficult to resell tickets for much more than the original purchase price because so many were on the market. He and Lisa also dealt with fights nearby, blocked views, poor fan etiquette and people kicking their chairs, he said, and decided watching at home was more comfortable.

Holmes said the arena also did not have suitable food options for him as someone who needs to eat gluten-free. His experience illustrates the practical considerations behind a season-ticket decision, alongside the price of the seats themselves and the ability to recoup some costs when a ticket holder cannot attend.

The Oilers’ ticket site was offering 40-game packages beginning with the Oct. 15 home game. Prices ranged from $3,850 per seat to almost $15,200 per seat. Payment plans were available, as were quarter-season and half-season packages, and fans often divided packages among friends or co-workers.

The season-ticket sales portal includes a disclaimer advising buyers not to resell tickets for a profit. Holmes said he and his wife needed to sell tickets for games they could not attend. Some season-ticket holders sell high-demand matchups, such as the Maple Leafs’ visit, as well as some playoff seats to make renewal more affordable. Losing money on resale can make that calculation harder.

Randy Kitching became a season-ticket holder when Rogers Place opened, but gave up his seats before the 2025-26 season. He said the purchase had been beyond his budget, though he wanted to see Connor McDavid play. Kitching had upper-bowl drink-rail seats and could attend only about a dozen games each year, selling the rest to cover costs.

“There were some dismal years when the Oilers still weren’t making the playoffs, but eventually they turned the corner, and it opened up a new opportunity for me,” Kitching said. He said he could sell playoff tickets at a profit that covered part of the following season’s regular-season seats. In his view, that changed when Oilers Entertainment Group raised playoff prices in response to demand, leaving season-ticket holders little or no opportunity to make money reselling those tickets.

“It was because of this sudden and ongoing lack of profit potential from the playoffs that I sadly chose to give up my season tickets,” Kitching said. He said the higher playoff prices removed a financial reason that had helped him maintain his package.

Playoff pricing also contributed to Thomas Tobin’s decision to leave. He had been a season-ticket holder since 2003 and kept his seats through moves to places as far away as Fort McMurray and Fernie, B.C. The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs in the season at issue, but Tobin said a hypothetical run to the Stanley Cup final would have made the price of 16 potential playoff games more than his regular-season package.

“It was going to be like $2,000 a game for Oilers-attack-once corner seat, row 13,” Tobin said of the cost for a potential Cup final that did not happen. He said that in the previous playoffs, there were games he wanted to resell but could not find buyers willing to pay what the Oilers charged. Tobin said the pricing had become too high.

Tobin said the team sent him an autographed photograph of McDavid and fellow Oilers star Leon Draisaitl bearing the tag, “Once an Oiler, always an Oiler,” along with a letter saying he would be welcomed back as a ticket holder. Even so, he said the cost was difficult to justify after last season. He had attended games during the team’s “Decade of Darkness” and could tolerate losing when he believed an undermanned roster was working hard, but felt the star-led team had gone through the motions night after night last season.

He also argued that regular ticket holders sustain attendance at games against teams such as the Seattle Kraken and Nashville Predators, which he described as “name-one-player-on-the-roster teams.” Tobin said the Oilers should charge season-ticket holders less for playoff seats in recognition of the less memorable regular-season games they attend. He pointed out that not every home date is a Saturday-night game against the Colorado Avalanche or a Battle of Alberta matchup.

“So the playoff tickets, all of a sudden one year, went up a stupid amount, and I was like, ‘Hey, I get it. I get the whole market-based pricing thing.’ But it fails to recognize 42 home games of maybe 10 memorable moments. There are 20 mediocre games and 10 absolute s-y games. There are games in the middle of February of a snowstorm that you still fill the seat and you still buy their marked-up concessions, and I just thought that (playoff pricing) was a slap in the face to the season ticket holder,” Tobin said.

Rogers Place announced a set of $10 “value” concession items on Monday. Sharnell Hordo, the arena’s vice-president of hospitality, described the change as a “truly across-the-board menu shift and change.” Tobin said he was frustrated to learn the Oilers placed third on Forbes’ list of the most profitable sports teams, ahead of every other NHL club included.

“Other major locations like Toronto should be earning way more revenue than the Oilers should,” Tobin said. “And the question, I guess, is how much of that have they done on the back of the fans? It’s a blue-collar town. We don’t have the massive corporate offices that some cities, like Toronto, where people are paying ridiculous amounts. It doesn’t add up.”

Another issue raised in the reporting was the signing of Alex Formenton. He was one of five players acquitted after being charged with sexually assaulting a woman identified as “E.M.” while they were members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team. A petition asking the Oilers to cancel Formenton’s one-year contract had received more than 71,000 signatures.

About 100 people held a small but vocal protest across from Rogers Place on Saturday evening, before Edmonton’s pre-season game against the Winnipeg Jets. Formenton scored in that game and was cheered inside the arena. A similar petition was launched in St. Louis after the Blues signed Dillon Dube, another of the five players; it had more than 8,700 signatures.

Based on reporting by Edmonton Journal.