Buffalo, NY (WGR 550)- On Wednesday the Buffalo Sabres and KeyBank announced a 10-year extension of the arena’s naming rights. This means it will remain the KeyBank Center through 2035-36.

Erie County Executive Mark Polancarz and Sabres Chief Operating Officer Pete Guelli were part of the ceremony.

The topic of the lease and an extension of course came up as did where the Sabres are at with improvements. Guelli said,

“When I came in, Terry (Pegula) and I talked about the future of the arena and what we wanted to do and he’s invested in every year and we’ve got some things that we’re not ready to announce today that we’ve done over the summer as well and we’re also looking at the long-term future of the arena.”

As owner of the team, the Pegula is responsible for all the costs of arena improvements. Guelli said he’s had talks to try to help with that,

“We’ve talked to the state, we’ve talked to the county and we’re in preliminary discussions there and we’re trying to map out the long-term plan and they’ll be part of whatever we do.”

As someone that has been in every building in the National Hockey League except one, I can tell you the seats, which have never been replaced, are by far in the worst shape in the league. Guelli said it’s something that could be coming soon,

“It’s definitely on the radar. There are a number of things that we know our fans are interested in and one of them is the seats and just candidly one of the things we’re waiting on is trying to determine what are we doing long-term before we go in and put in a whole new swath of brand new seats, it doesn’t make sense until we understand what we’re doing with the building long-term.”

Not having the playoffs in Buffalo for 14 years has caused a severe dip in attendance and the support the team gets. Guelli knows it’s up to them to change things,

“It’s something we need to work on, we still had relatively full buildings all year despite some people being real disappointed where we’re at, but I’m confident if we turn things around like we expect to on the ice, they’ll be back in the arena and this will be the home ice advantage that we need.

Guelli said season tickets currently hover at around 9,000 and he expects to be about that number when the season starts in October. Guelli said ideally he’d love to see that total over 10,000 and called 12,000 a sweet spot.

“There are a lot of ways to get people to the building, we’re launching a number of new plans to give them optionality where if they want to come in for fewer games to see how things go, great, or if they want to come in on an individual game basis.”

As far as the lease, it’s been extended for right now, but Guelli said there are a number of ways where this could go,
“I think there we’re in a great place relative to the lease, there’s a lot of optionality there, right now we could just move forward and it’s going to just roll over for the next five years and our goal is to make sure this team is here long-term and we think the building is a catalyst for growth.”
Guelli said he’s confident that he’ll find a path with Erie County going forward.
As far as the Sabres off season Guelli didn’t say how Pegula feels, but he did talk about what his thoughts are about the off season,
“We all sat down with Kevyn (Adams) and talked about what the future might be and I think you’ve seen a series of moves and bringing in Jarmo (Kekalainen) with a high level of experience is a great addition to this team. Making some moves on the strength and conditioning side and brining in Eric Staal, and then we made a number of on the ice moves as well, so we needed to get better defensively and we think we did, so until we drop the puck, it’s hard to say how things will work out, but I can’t wait until October and we’re playing hockey.”
Polancarz said the county does want to get out of the arena business, but he doesn’t expect that to happen by October. He also said there is no danger of the Sabres moving out of town.