Lightning-Avalanche Stanley Cup tickets breaking resale records in Colorado

The Tampa Bay Lightning are a hotter ticket than Adele.

That seems to be the case at Denver’s Ball Arena, home of the Colorado Avalanche, against whom the Lightning kick off their quest for a third straight Stanley Cup on Wednesday.

Resale seats for Game 1 are selling for an average of $1,061 apiece, according to ticket marketplace Vivid Seats, shattering the site’s record for the most expensive Game 1 since 2010. The previous high: Game 1 between the Washington Capitals and Las Vegas Golden Knights in 2018, at $951. Tickets to Game 1 of last year’s finals against the Montreal Canadiens in Tampa averaged $579.

Not only that, but Vivid Seats says the first Lightning-Avalanche game is the most expensive event at Ball arena since two 2016 concerts by Adele, which clocked in with average prices of $468 and $360 per show.

Tickets to the next three games are also running hot, according to the site. Tickets for Saturday’s Game 2 would be even higher than Game 1, averaging $1,190. Demand in Denver might be driving up prices, given the Avalanche haven’t made the Stanley Cup finals since 2001 — but Tampa fans, too, are shelling out big bucks, with resale tickets at Amalie Arena already averaging $986 for Monday’s Game 3 and $1,018 for Game 4 on June 22.

All those numbers are way up from recent Stanley Cup finals.

Last year, tickets to Games 1 and 2 between the Lightning and Montreal Canadiens at Amalie Arena averaged $579 and $654, respectively, on Vivid Seats. Before the pandemic in 2019, Boston fans paid an average of $779 and $732 for tickets to games 1 and 2 between the Bruins and Pat Maroon’s St. Louis Blues.

And in 2015, the last time the Lightning made the finals before the pandemic, fans paid an average of $351 for Game 1 and $450 for Game 2 against the eventual champion Chicago Blackhawks.