It took just 15 minutes for the entire seated stand at the Queenstown Ice Hockey Arena to sell out this week and the total of more than 500 tickets were sold in an hour and a-half.
This is a sure sign Queenstown is getting on the ice hockey bandwagon, Stampede captain Simon Glass (30) says.
Glass arrived at training on Tuesday night assuming he would be able to buy a few extra tickets for the big final against the Canterbury Red Devils but 500 ice hockey fanatics had taken first dibs.
"By the time I got there, it was all over."
Those who have missed out will be able to view the match over the internet thanks to pledges totalling $2000 to the National Ice Hockey League which will live-stream the match.
The league's media and marketing manager, Jez Brown, initiated the idea, but called for funds, which were raised in just three days, he said.
"Ice hockey is rapidly growing in popularity in both New Zealand and Australia."
For this reason Brown had planned to stream all games next season to both countries, but when he heard so many fans missed out on tickets for tomorrow's final he sped up the process.
Glass says he knew the match would sell out, but he did not expect it would be in just one night.
The former Ice Blacks captain has been with the side since its first season and he has noticed the pick-up in popularity through the 2012 regular season.
"That whole eight-game winning streak has done it, I think. It's been a great standard and the crowds have seen probably some of the best hockey we have played."
Glass says the influence the home crowd will have on his side will be phenomenal and he expects nothing less than for them to "blow the roof off"'.
Asked whether local expectations could affect him and his team-mates on the ice, he said: "We've got such an experienced team.
For a lot of us this is our fifth trip to the finals, so the warm up should get rid of the pre-game jitters.
"There's certainly been a step up at training this week. Tuesday was the best training we have had all season. The boys are pumped."
Tomorrow the team will go about "business as usual", which will include lunch at Searle Lane, where the match will later be live-streamed, says owner James Arnott.
Most of the players have their own pre-match rituals.
"Hockey people all over the world are quite a superstitious bunch," Glass says.
In the Stampede's case, some players will always put on the left skate first; coach Steve Reid played only a spectator role at Tuesday's training because that is what he has done all season long; Michael Sommers is sporting an eight-week-old beard to go with the eight-week winning streak and Glass still wears the same padded pants he did 15 years ago.
"Some of it's held together with old shoelaces and stitches. She's pretty old."
