🔒On the Record: For Adam Goldberg, leading the Maine Mariners hockey team is a year-round labor of love

As president of the Maine Mariners hockey team, Adam Goldberg leads a staff of 18 full-time employees. The team, part of the ECHL minor professional league and an affiliate of the Boston Bruins, was founded in 2017.

At the start of the 2024-25 season, Mainebiz sat down with Goldberg inside the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland to talk about how ticket sales are going, the squad’s recent change of ownership and efforts to expand the fan base.

Mainebiz: How are sales trending so far this season?

Adam Goldberg: They’re good. Our season tickets are already matched to what we did last year, and our groups are pacing well ahead of where we were last year — overall very good, but it’s a 36-game grind and there’s still some digging to do.

MB: A grind from whose perspective?

AG: Certainly from the players’ perspective and the business operations. The ECHL is such a weekend-centric league, where we play the majority of our games on Friday-Saturday-Sunday.

If you compare that to the NHL, they have a game, two days off, a game, one day off, and then a game. In the ECHL, we’ve got a game Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then we’re off until Friday.

MB: Any changes since New York financier Dexter Paine bought the team from Comcast Spectacor in September?

AG: Dexter and his family are wonderful people, and I think they have such big hearts. Part of that will lead into the creation of a nonprofit foundation. Comcast was a great owner — they gave us a lot of flexibility and autonomy, but I think Dexter [a native of North Conway, N.H.] brings a level of community and time investment that we didn’t have before.

MB: When did you last raise the price of tickets?

AG: We raised it last year, but I wouldn’t anticipate a raise again, at least for this season going into next season. Generally, our target is to be right in the middle of the pack as far as the league is concerned — we’re right around $19 or $20 right now, and that factors in group tickets, season ticket packages and single-game buyers.

MB: What segments are growing the fastest?

AG: Groups have been tremendous. The lowest-hanging fruit for groups is youth hockey — they come to multiple games. Also, we’ve done a great job of B2B sales — of getting businesses out to celebrate with their employees and to bring clients out to games. We’ve seen tremendous growth in our groups over the last few years.

MB: What’s the strategy for expanding the fan base?

AG: Our thought process is, let’s get a group person to be a single-game buyer, the single-game person to get the mini-plan [12 games], the mini-plan person to upgrade to a half season [18 games], and the half-season person to go for a full season [36 games].

MB: What do you do in the off-season?

AG: We don’t have a very large staff, and there’s a lot to do. It takes the staff a lot of work and a lot of time to get 36 nights of hockey ready each season, and it takes a long time in the summer to do prep work. The off-season is planning, and the in-season is doing.

MB: Any new partnerships for the team?

AG: We renewed with MaineHealth, which is our largest partner I believe. We also have UScellular, Verizon and [Belfast-based windows supplier] Mathews Brothers – a big one that came in this year that came out of a cold call from one of our ticket reps.

We’re not looking to do any cash grabs, we want to build relationships with companies. We also don’t want our sponsors to just put commercials up — we want there to be an element of fun for the fans.

MB: What do you enjoy most about your job?

AG: I enjoy the challenges and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together — and the people I get to work with are the best part of it.