By Huw Beynon
The Breakers have apologised to fans who've missed out on tickets for the winner-take-all game three of the grand final series against the Cairns Taipans on Friday.
Their website was continually overloaded when tickets went on sale and the club admits they underestimated the demand.
It's a Breakers' fan's dream game, but buying tickets for the grand final series decider turned out to be a nightmare.
And even more frustrating will be watching the game at home, which some die-hard fans like Andrew Price now have to do.
"I haven't missed a home game in about four seasons now, it was very frustrating," says Price. "Used to be able to turn up at games and buy tickets there."
Not any more, with fans trying over and over the Breakers' website had over 500,000 hits yesterday afternoon with only 3000 tickets available.
Breakers general manager Richard Clarke admits they didn't anticipate this much interest.
"We wouldn't get that number of hits across our whole season, let alone in three hours."
Fans vented their frustrations on Twitter, blaming both the Breakers and 'bandwagon' fans who haven't supported the team all season.
And scalpers are already attempting to use TradeMe to make a profit, but the Breakers say anything above face value is being deleted by TradeMe and those tickets will not work at the door on Friday.
This episode again raises the question of the Breakers moving to the larger Vector Arena.
"The NSEC is our home venue," says Clarke. "For us to take the game to a venue we've never played in and rims we haven't shot on doesn't make sense to us."
Breakers captain Paul Henare had a message to fans who missed out: "Sorry you couldn't make it. We do appreciate the support you've given us throughout the season. So it doesn't happen again, grab those season tickets and you won't have that problem again."
And Price says he intends to do exactly that.
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