You are right. I wanted to implement this in my own repo, so I added some code and tested. This method works :-)

Add to your database schema something like:

<verbatim>
create_date TEXT
</verbatim>

Then in your New Ticket template, add something like:

<verbatim>
<th1>
  if {[info exists submit]} {
     set create_date [date]
     submit_ticket
  }
</th1>
</verbatim>

You likely already have the above if statement and only need to add the <tt>set create_date</tt> part. You can then display the create date in your View template.

Sorry for the bum fix to start with. I made a simple test case and didn't test editing.