Nicholas Forsyth has watched the North Bay Battalion play at home and on the road religiously since the team moved from Brampton to North Bay in the spring of 2013.
Forsyth, the unofficial North Bay Battalion fan club president, has organized Battalion fan buses for years and when he tried to secure tickets for game 3 in Sudbury on Tuesday, April 16 between the Wolves and Battalion, he found out North Bay fans wanting tickets will have to take a back seat to Sudbury area fans.
Other North Bay fans trying to get tickets ran into the same problem when they went online and plunked in a North Bay area address.
Forsyth did receive a message from the Sudbury Wolves.
"Unfortunately for North Bay fans, we are allowing Sudbury fans the opportunity to support their Wolves first and Sudbury fans get first purchase rights and North Bay members will be able to purchase 48 hours beforehand being on Sunday," the Wolves told Forsyth via an email.
Our sister site BayToday reached out to the Wolves for comment, but did not get a reply by Tuesday afternoon.
"I am disappointed in the dirty tactics being imposed by the Sudbury Wolves organization on the North Bay fans," Forsyth told BayToday.
"It is a shame that they would rather see their arena empty than sell to North Bay residents. Hockey is played by the players and not the fans, and I’m sure the players would rather see the seats full no matter what team they are cheering for.
North Bay has crowded Wolves games in the past, for instance in 2012 when the then Brampton Battalion travelled to Sudbury, North Bay brought with it more than 200 fans to cheer on what would be their future team for the fall of 2013.
Maybe that is what the Wolves organization is worried about.
"The highway 17 rivalry is back and we need to be able to show our team pride at home, as well as on the road," he said.
"I am hoping to remove the roadblocks and get a busload of fans to Sudbury to cheer on our Troops."
Meantime, back in North Bay the North Bay Battalion organization has confirmed it is not putting any Sudbury address restrictions for any of their playoff tickets.
Game one between the Wolves and Battalion takes place on Thursday night at Memorial Gardens.