Flames press pause on 50/50 ticket sales

NHL club’s foundation working the bugs out of online ticket purchasing software

CALGARY The Calgary Flames Foundation postponed online 50/50 raffle ticket sales before Game 1 of the Flames’ first-round playoff series with the Dallas Stars on Tuesday.

In a tweet, the foundation says it needs to work with its software partner to enhance the ticket purchasing system.

Candice Goudie, executive director of the Calgary Flames Foundation, said she isn’t sure when ticket sales will resume.

“We hope that it’s not a significant delay, but we will make sure that we’re communicating with people as we move through this,” she said.

Demand for NHL 50/50 tickets exploded in Alberta after the AGLC made allowances for online ticket sales during the pandemic.

“No one anticipated that the appetite for online raffles would be this significant — in the multimillion-dollar range,” said Goudie.

“So we’re just taking extra steps to ensure that we can handle the potential volume we receive when they are available.”

The Calgary Flames Foundation’s last raffle on Aug. 6 saw the prize pot grow to more than $895,000, with $1.79 million in ticket sales.

The Edmonton Oilers’ last raffle grew to more than $15 million, but its prize value has been called into question after customers reported being charged multiple times as the online sales website gave them error messages.

Goudie confirmed the Flames have been working with Ascend Fundraising Solutions, the same company that provided the online ticket sales infrastructure for the Oilers’ 50/50 draw.

The Oilers’ community foundation said all tickets for the Friday draw remain valid.

But Alberta fans who want to void ticket purchases have until noon Thursday to make those requests and get a refund before a final total is determined and a winning ticket is drawn.

“We do really, really thank everybody for purchasing tickets and their interest in this online raffle program,” Natalie Minckler, executive director of the foundation, said in an interview Monday.

“To say it’s unprecedented is a complete understatement.

“We definitely apologize and are truly sorry for what people have experienced. But, at the end of the day, we will award a winner.”

Ascend Fundraising Solutions said its servers were overwhelmed with requests to purchase tickets.

At certain points, it said demand exceeded $100,000 in tickets per minute, causing slow loading times, geolocation errors and duplication of some orders.

Daniel Lewis, Ascend’s chief executive, said the company has hundreds of clients — including other National Hockey League teams — and has been involved in more than 10,000 charitable raffles in Canada and the United States.

“We have never seen the kind of demand for 50/50 lottery tickets in any capacity approaching what happened with the Oilers Foundation on Friday night, also on Wednesday and also on Monday.”

Lewis said a typical Canadian hockey team’s 50/50 raffle is about $100,000 per night — even with online sales.