Before I left the office Wednesday night, I shot Kootenay Ice GM Jeff Chynoweth an e-mail, asking if his staff could send me the stats from Thursday's Americans-Ice game. While looking up his e-mail on the Ice website, I ran across a story on the team's main page that read: Ice season ticket sales lowest ever.

The story leads with: ... ticket sales for the 2010-2011 regular season are the lowest since the Cranbrook Recreation Complex opened in October 2000. A total of 1,726 season tickets have been sold for the upcoming hockey season, which is a decrease of 307 from last year. Up until this season, the lowest season ticket sales in the Rec Plex were 1,946 in 2003-2004 (the highest sales were in 2002-2003 - 2,429).

If the attendance numbers for Thursday's game against the Americans — a paltry 531 — are any indication of the regular season, the Ice are in for a lot of games with empty seats at the Rec Plex, which holds 4,264 plus 352 standing room only spots. This is a nice place. I've been there a few times. The fans should be thankful for a nice building and a decent team to watch.

I don't know what the economical status of Cranbrook is, but I can tell you the hockey team isn't fighting Friday night high school football for fans as they are in the Tri-Cities. I hope the Ice can weather the storm and put some butts in the seats.