By Jeff D'Andrea

Raiders hope improved on-ice product relates to increased ticket sales

Aug 23, 2011 | 6:55 AM

An impressive playoff run by eighth-seeded Prince Albert Raiders against top-ranked Saskatoon Blades, a large numbers of players eligible to return, exciting new prospects and things are looking good for the Raiders’ this year.

According to Raiders business director and director of marketing Bruce Vance, that optimism has come at a perfect time.

The Raiders have lost $300,000 combined in the last three years, resulting in the Raiders running their reserve funds dry.

“Over the last three or four years, we have not made money,” Vance said.

“We’ve whittled down what we have in reserve and those reserves are gone now. We need to have a good year with season’s tickets, make the playoffs and then build that bank account up again.

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“That being said, with the support we’ve had in the community, we’re sound now financially, but we need to build that to support the franchise.”

The Raiders need to secure 1,700 season’s tickets to break even, but the team has not reached that figure over the last seven years, Vance said. They came very close to that figure in the 2005-06 season, selling 1,676 season’s tickets that year.

That’s the bad news, but the good news is that with the Raiders expecting to take a step forward this season, they already have secured 1,432 season’s tickets this year as of Monday.

At this time last year, the Raiders had only sold 1,276.

“With the push we’ve had here already this summer, we think we’ll have a real good running shot at getting to 1,700 … we think we’ll be in good shape if we get to 1,700, that is certainly a very magic number for us from a financial standpoint, that gives us a good number of walk up tickets as well,” said Vance.

“If we can get to 1,700, we can break even and as a community-owned team, the goal each season is to get back to zero which we haven’t done in the last couple of years.”

The Raiders are hoping that they can improve their season’s tickets gradually, eventually getting up to 2,100 as recognized by their franchise initiative, Together to 2,100.

On the first day of training camp Thursday, the team will hold its annual Raider Day at the Art Hauser Centre from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., allowing season tickets holders the chance to sit in seats and either purchase or change their seats.

There will be a $2 hamburger and pop lunch and chances to meet two NHL draft picks Mark McNeill and Harrison Ruopp, as well as team mascot Riley the Raider.

jdandrea@panow.com