The Hearts of Pine will host One Knoxville SC, the defending USL League One champion, in their home opener Saturday night at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland. The match is set to begin at 6 p.m. If you have tickets, consider yourself lucky, and don’t gloat.

Portland’s four professional sports teams — the Hearts, along with baseball’s Portland Sea Dogs, hockey’s Maine Mariners, and basketball’s Maine Celtics — are each are blessed with strong fan support. Each routinely sells out games. The Hearts, though, they’ve transformed the sellout into art. There’s never been a tougher ticket in this town.

The entire 20-game home schedule is sold out. Some tickets are available on the secondary market, but if you go that route, don’t count on bargain hunting. A quick glance at StubHub Friday afternoon showed less than 50 tickets available, with the cheapest going for $80 in section 102 (to the right of the press box) and deemed “best price.” Two seats in the field club could be had for $152 each. If you plan to attend solo, you can find a single for $65.

For most seats, that’s well above face value. The average ticket price for a Hearts of Pine game this season, including season tickets, single-games, group packages, whatever, is $27. Sections 119 and 120, where members of the Dirigo Union supporters group raise a glorious, joyful ruckus throughout the game, are $12 per game.

But surely that’s just because Saturday’s game is the home opener, you’ll say. Home openers are always more popular. Games the rest of the season must see a dramatic drop in price.

Yeah, one would think that. But for the April 19 home game against FC Naples, a pair of tickets together will set you back $165, a single $59. It’s like that all season.

Hearts of Pine games are an absolute blast, an outdoor party with a soccer game as the centerpiece. Maybe after a few seasons, the ticket brouhaha will settle down. Until then, bide your time on the season ticket waitlist, make friends with a season ticket holder, or pay the scalper’s rates on the secondary market.

THERE’S ANOTHER OPTION for anyone searching for those elusive Hearts of Pine tickets. Join Dirigo Union, the team’s official supporter’s group. Being a member of Dirigo Union doesn’t guarantee you tickets to games, but it includes you in a community of fans who can help find tickets when they’re available.

One of the perks of joining Dirigo Union (dues are $25 per year) is access to the group’s ticket exchange. Set up by Dirigo Union board member Travis Kroot, the exchange allows club members who have season tickets but are unable to attend a game to pass the tickets on to another member.

“A lot of us have tickets, and we want people within Dirigo Union to have the same experience we do. We try to make sure if we’re not able to go to a game, we’re passing our tickets on to members of the Union,” said Justine Satterthwaite, Dirigo Union’s membership coordinator. “A lot of us are like, ‘Hey I can’t make this game. Take this ticket, and buy me a beer at the next game.’ We’re all friends. It’s just a pay-it-forward situation.”

Dirigo Union currently has 1,058 dues paying members, Satterthwaite said, the same number the group ended with after the 2025 season.

THE DIVISION I MEN’S ICE HOCKEY TRANSFER PORTAL opens Monday for a 15-day window during which players can switch schools. This is the first season of the shorter window, rather than the 45 days in previous years. It will be interesting to see how the University of Maine uses the portal to restock the team, which went 18-14-3 last season and bowed out in the Hockey East quarterfinals. It will also be interesting to see how many current Black Bears enter the portal to look for a new school.

One thing that could certainly help attract transfers and incoming freshman alike to Maine is the $500,000 donation by Arthur S. Demoulas to the Black Bear Student-Athlete Experience Fund, the conduit through which Maine is able to make direct payments to student athletes. Demoulas, who played for the Black Bears in 1977 and 1978, earmarked his donation to men’s hockey.

This should ease any lingering doubts that Maine is serious about remaining competitive in the college sports landscape. You don’t have to like the way college sports is run now, but you have to acknowledge that Maine is taking the changes seriously.