The Ontario government has reinstated venue capacity limits of 50% for professional sports franchises moving forward. The Toronto Raptors, Maple Leafs, and Ottawa Senators will be capped at half capacity for all home games as of midnight this Saturday.
While this new measure will obviously have an effect on the NHL & NBA franchises, the same limits will also be in effect for venues which hold more than 1,000 people, meaning it will also affect minor leagues as well. The move comes on the heels of rising COVID cases in the province as the omicron variant continues to spread.
This change creates a large degree of uncertainty around which tickets will be honored and which will be refunded or transferred into vouchers for future home games amongst fans of the franchises. MLSE which operates the Raptors and Leafs stated “Our ticketing team is currently working through the logistics of implementing this change and will provide follow up details to all ticket holders within 24 hours”.
Senators beat reporter Bruce Garrioch claims that the three franchises were given 10 minutes advance notice of the impending changes to protocols:
Nick Eaves, MLSE’s chief venues and operations officer, assured fans “We want to be equitable. There’s obviously a really wide range and mix of ticket holders, and we want to make sure that we’re making decisions that really recognize the scope of people that we have coming to games over the next while.”
Ontario becomes the first province in the NHL or NBA to reinstate capacity limits.