SEATTLE — If having Seattle’s NHL season ticket drive compete with what Las Vegas managed was anyone’s goal, that turned out to be a race akin to Carl Lewis facing former Mariners first baseman Dae-ho Lee in a 100-meter sprint.

Las Vegas needed six weeks to top 10,000 season ticket deposits. On Thursday morning, the Oak View Group said Seattle’s drive topped 10,000 in just 12 minutes.

By about 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time — only 75 minutes after the drive began — an OVG spokesman said more than 25,000 deposits had been obtained. At the two-hour-mark, they’d surpassed 26,000 and the company indicated it would likely cut off requests by Friday.

While there is no limit yet on how many of the $500 and $1,000 deposits will be taken, OVG was encouraging fans to keep plunking down cash before the cutoff point.

One reason is, the deposits are refundable and the full cost of season tickets has yet to be made public. A sizable portion of the deposits could still be taken back once fans are given the full cost of season ticket packages by next year.

— The Seattle Times