Alouettes disappointed at ticket sales for CFL East Division semifinal

MONTREAL - The Montreal Alouettes are scrambling to sell tickets for the CFL East Division semifinal.

While team president Mark Weightman declined Friday to say how many tickets have seen sold, he will be surprised if they reach this season's average of 20,675.

The Alouettes face the B.C. Lions in the East semifinal on Sunday afternoon at Percival Molson Stadium.

"We knew that selling this game to the fans would be a challenge, first of all because selling a division semifinal has always been tougher than selling an East final, even when we were playing playoff games at Olympic Stadium," said Weightman.

"There, we sold about 50,000 tickets for a division final, but for a division semifinal, it was around 30,000."

The Alouettes have played post-season games at the 55,000-seat Big O since 2002, but were unable to this year due to the shaky state of the domed stadium's roof. Games cannot be played if snow is forecast within 24 hours of kickoff.

"It's not that we didn't want to play there, but even if we wanted to take that risk, it's a situation the league could not agree to," said Weightman. "So we're playing at Percival Molson."

He said some fans may balk at attending an outdoor game in cold weather. The team was also left with little time to sell tickets because it didn't know until the final regular season game whether it would play in the semifinal or get an extra week off by finishing first in the East.

The team is trying to attract fans with pre-game festivities and having food trucks available in the west end zone once the gates open for the 1 p.m. ET game.

The Alouettes could not sell out their 23,500-seat stadium this season. They drew only 186,077 spectators to nine regular season games.

"Even if we're disappointed, we can't say we don't understand it," said Weightman. "We knew this season, with Anthony Calvillo's retirement, would be tough in terms of sales."

It hurt that the team got off to a 1-7 start, but crowds picked up as the Alouettes got a roll to go 8-2 in their last 10 games to finish the season at 9-9. Their final two home games drew their two biggest crowds: 23,069 and 22,013 respectively.

Weightman expects a noisy crowd and that "the ambience will be excellent for the game."