Other Post Season Issues

Ok.

Know that this is all based on assumptions and HUGE "What If's?" but if we make regionals (and even then, which location is ANYONE's guess) what is the likelihood of getting tix after the fact? I see on USCHO that many are buying them now and vaguely recall many people being without last year. Can't remember how exactly Judy and I got tix last year (think it was through Age or the Anbinders or another member of the faithful who might have pre-purchased them) but don't want to find myself left out should the team advance. Opinions, ideas, recollections anyone?

buy em thru cu. soon as cu knows its in the ncaa's, they have tickets through 254 bear. the info was pretty well posted, and i had no problem getting tix in the cu section last yr, even tho i called from nj on spring break.


-mike

The problem is which regional to buy for.

The team will be issued a bloc of tickets, but it's ridiculously small and the "preferred recipients" (hint: not any of us) get most or even all of them, especially in a year like this when alums who haven't seen a game in 30 years will come out of the woodwork to share the love.

Ideally there should be a ticket exchange where fans buy options on tickets and then get the ones for the regional that there team makes.

But there aint, so unless anybody has a better idea, my advice is to buy sets for both and then sell the incorrect one to fans who are in the same awkward position come March. Naturally, as you will have had the foresight to stock the product, you will be entitled to a market-driven mark-up that for all I know might even recoup the cost of both sets.

Last year I went through the paranoid phase that said "I'll only buy tickets to X after I know that Cornell will be playing in X lest I offend the hockey gods."

Lake Placid tickets I ordered from the Olympic Center Boxoffice in the midweek before the games once I knew I could make it out there. I ordered tickets from ticketmaster for the first day of the NCAA regionals the moment I heard that Cornell had made it. But after we crushed the Qua-hogs, I was a bit stranded getting tickets for the second day. I needed 2: bought one from a Harvard fan who had no reason to go to the second day, and one from Beaber, both of whom I heard had tickets on the USCHO forum (after the first game).

I'd rather not repeat that experience again, though... it was pretty stressful getting the ticket from the Harvard kid.

OTOH, do I really want to order tix to both east regionals now not knowing if Cornell will make the NCAAs and, even if they do, whether they'll be in the East. I think I might try going through the CU box office this time around, but it makes me a bit nervous.

Anyway, you asked about previous year's experiences, so I thought I would share mine (and thanks again, Beaber!).

Greg wrote:

The problem is which regional to buy for.

Of course, given the staggered timing of games at the East and Northeast regionals, one could buy tickets for both and go to all six games.

Really? I hadn't looked but I assumed day 1 of one regional overlapped with day 2 of the other.

Greg and others,

Check out [www.ncaasports.com]. The regionals overlap, but the Northeast regional final starts at 8:00 pm on 3/29 in Worcester, while the East regional semis are scheduled for noon and 3:30 pm in Providence on the same day. So yes, assuming we don't have a bunch of OT's or dreadful weather, it will likely be possible to be at all six games.

The "East" semis are the afternoon of the 29th at noon and 3:30 and the "Northeast" finals are that evening at 8.

Yahoo! Maps puts the 2 cities at about a 40 mile drive from one another up Rt. 146. Traffic, weather, tendencies for double-header games to start late, TV Timeouts, and possible OT might make it tight. But I'd say it's possible.

The Worcester Centrum says 2 day ticket packages cost $50 ( [www.centrumcentre.com] )
The Dunkin' Donuts Center website is horrible ( [www.provcc.com] ). It doesn't have an events calendar for March, and the games in Providence are not listed on Ticketmaster.com yet.

Last year I had a real tough time getting tickets for the band above and beyond the 25 they let in free at the gate and that was about 10am Monday morning after selection. By then I couldn't get a single ticket in Ithaca let alone the 15 I needed. If last year is any indication, the department will eat most of the CU allotment. Every administrator who wants one gets one before a student which is clearly in the ideal of college athletics.

Rich Hovorka '96 wrote:

The Worcester Centrum says 2 day ticket packages cost $50 ( [www.centrumcentre.com] )
The Dunkin' Donuts Center website is horrible ( [www.provcc.com] ). It doesn't have an events calendar for March, and the games in Providence are not listed on Ticketmaster.com yet.

From what people are saying on USCHO today, ticket packages for the games in Providence are substantially more, something like $83.

like i said, i'm a student, and i had no problem getting 3 tickets.

we got in line at 9am the day that they were selling placid tickets, and we were in row 3 (5 tix total).

i called the box office the morning that worcester tix went on sale, and they called me back around 1pm. i received 3 tickets to both ncaa games, in like row 10. (we also got harvard away tix through the box office by the same process, the day they came out).

granted, the school does get too few tickets to these events (tho i hear the pepsi arena is pretty big so you shouldn't have a problem with that), so maybe i was lucky. i was banking on keeping an eye on ticket sale times when cu makes the appropriate playoff rounds. that's my best advice. of course, it does help to actually be on campus. as i understand, it is the department's policy to take the "preferred" allotment off the top (i.e. hockey association, players' families, administration), and then to sell to those present at the box office prior to returning phone calls. in terms of preferred allotment, i believe CU received 100 tickets, to which 25 went to the band, and 15 to the CHA, leaving 60 seats for students in harvard's section 14.

-mike

Last year I showed up at the Quinnipiac game in Worcester while the Maine-Harvard game was already in progress. Although the seats (3) we got were pretty poor, we got in the game. I did not attend Sunday.

I have a feeling that there will be probably be more tickets available this year since only 4 teams will be at each regional instead of 6. Of course, then some people might try to attend both as mentioned above.

Also, the Pepsi is huge compared to Placid. It holds 17,500. (that might be for concerts or basketball, hockey is a bit less) This is roughly twice the capacity of Placid. This all depends on whether they open the upper deck up. Given that there will only be 4 teams instead of 5 this year, they might not. On their website, it states that the capacity is from 6,000 to 17,500. I would guess that the 6,000 is for hockey when they close off the upper deck (although it might be for monster truck shows or home shows). I would imagine that given Placid was nearly full with around 8-9,000 for ECACs, they'd have to open the upper deck just being in a bigger more centralized area.

My story pretty much reflects Mike's... for Placid I got them in person around noon the first day, and we were midway up the Cornell section. Needed 8 tickets and got two groups of 4 right next to each other (like 1-4 in one row, 5-8 in the next).

For Worcester I called from Ct the day they went on sale and got tickets, though I couldn't use (and had to sell) the 2nd day's... watched that from Ithaca TWC Ch 77 (74? whatever ).

For Albany it shouldn't be a problem. If you can't get Cornell tickets, I can't imagine it being an issue getting tickets through the box office somewhere in that corner. The regionals are another story, but a good point was brought up that each region only has 4 teams now instead of 6, so I'd be hard pressed to see not being able to get any tickets, unless college hockey's overall popularity has grown 50% in a year. And I can't see *too* many people doing both regions. Anything's possible, so if you want to be absolutely sure buy both now and sell one (or both, if we're in the West and/or MIA) later, but I'd be surprised if you can't get something somewhere after we know.

-Fred

funny you should mention this....I guess another example of our minds working on the same wave length....I was staring at the Southwest weekly mailing and wondering if I should purchase the 30-something tickets to Providence or Albany for that weekend...and how I sneak out of work that day to get to the airport with a deadline of the following Monday...

Just out of curiosity, if I flew to Providence, is there anyone in the area who may be able to give me a ride to Worcester if we're playing the Friday 4pm game in Worcester?

Worcester says individual game tickets on sale sometime in Feb.. So if you are really worried, and cheap , buy first session tickets only. I'm sure there will be losing team seats on sale for the finals. If Providence ever gets into the real world, I suspect they will say the same thing.