What's up at the Joe?

Watched the last of the Wings-Ducks game tonight. It was Steve Yzerman night, so they had retired his jersey at the beginning of the night.

But in watching the game, I was struck by how quiet it was. I don't know why that was, although towards the end of the game the deafening silence might have come from the fact there were so many empty seats.

Why were there empty seats? It was sold out - so they said - because of Stevie Y night. The opponents were arguably the best team in the league so far this season (the Anaheim Ducks have dropped the Mighty from their name, only to become so on the ice). It was only a one goal difference with four plus minutes to play, so it wasn't a blow out.

Yet in following the play, many empty seats were evident in the first dozen or whatever rows from the glass.

And this is in Hockey Town?

I suppose I should also say that the same thing was in evidence for the two games that I saw down in Phoenix. That is, there were many empty seats at Coyote games too. This makes me wonder about the financial health of these franchises and the league in general.

Those empty seats could be paid for by corporate folks, who aren't really interested in being at the games and get a tax credit or write-off for their purchase. But if so, what is it saying about your sport when the main way you make money is by selling tickets to people who don't
actually want to be there?