How the Senators will protect home-ice advantage against Toronto

Toronto Maple Leafs fans often take up a lot of seats for games against Ottawa. The Senators have a plan so that doesn’t happen in the playoffs. Photo by Tony Caldwell /PostmediaArticle content

Two of the three regular-season meetings between the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs this season took place at Scotiabank Arena.

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But truthfully, it felt like all three were played on Toronto’s home ice.

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When the Leafs visited Ottawa on Jan. 25, blue sweaters overwhelmed the Canadian Tire Centre, with only scattered dots of fans wearing red.

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“It’s just another hockey game, but it definitely pisses us off a little bit,” centre Shane Pinto told Hockey Night in Canada’s Kyle Bukauskas before the game.

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Now, with the Battle of Ontario set to return to the playoffs for the first time in 21 years, expect a drastically different scene in Kanata for Games 3 and 4.

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“There’s no doubt it’s going to be very much a home team environment,” said Jeff Harrop, the Senators’ vice-president of marketing and customer engagement.

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Season ticket holders could purchase up to four playoff tickets, and many of them were taking the team up on that offer.

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While the Canadian Tire Centre holds over 18,500 fans, Senators president Cyril Leeder said he expected fewer than 500 tickets would be left available to the general public. (They went on sale Thursday afternoon.)

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“The demand has been quite high. We thought it would be high, but it’s even higher than we expected,” Leeder said.

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In the five weeks leading up to the playoffs, the number of season ticket holders increased by 902, he added.

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The sudden surge had to be carefully monitored, as the team cancelled more than 125 accounts identified as “garage brokers” — buyers outside of Ottawa attempting to buy and resell playoff tickets.

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By prioritizing early playoff ticket access for season ticket members, the organization has made it significantly harder for Leafs fans to recreate January’s road takeover.

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There’s good reason to be cautious. With four previous playoff meetings between the rivals, there’s plenty of historical precedent.

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Back in 2004 — the last time the Senators and Leafs clashed in springtime hockey — the Citizen reported that “the Leafs fan population was diminished at the Corel Centre (now Canadian Tire Centre) compared to regular season games when Leafs Nation snaps up tickets by the thousands in advance.”

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But when the series went to Game 6 in Ottawa, those sporting the Leafs’ blue and white were a sizable number, eliciting a small roar in the crowd on Toronto’s single goal that night. (The Senators won that night in overtime.)