The athletic ticket office announced plans yesterday for this year’s men’s ice hockey ticket distribution procedures. Student tickets will be on sale the weekend of Oct. 1-2, and as in years past, will involve a line contained within the Ramin Room at Bartels Hall. This year, however, there are several differences in the procedure from years past.
“[This year] there is no advertised start time,” said Gene Nighman ’81, director of athletic tickets, events and sports school. “There can’t be a pre-line, because when we make the announcement, I’m going to be ready to give out line numbers.”
The ticket office will announce official start time and location in late September. At that time and location, ticket numbers will be distributed, and students will be required to be present for random line checks between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. On Friday, Oct. 1, students must again be present at the Ramin Room, where line checks will take place periodically between 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 1 and 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 2. Each line number can be used to purchase two tickets.
Nighman hopes that this will alleviate the problems in past years of students gathering behind the Biotechnology Building hours before the announced start time. As a result, students who showed up at the announced start time found themselves at the end of a very long, unofficial line.
In addition, a significant change in this year’s procedure will deal with time requirements. For the past two years, students paid for their season tickets on Saturday, while waiting in the Ramin Room throughout the day. They then returned on Sunday morning to select their seats and receive their tickets. This year, seat selection will take place following the last line check on Saturday night.
“We’re not making the kids come back on Sunday,” Nighman said. “Why make them waste the whole weekend?”
Ticket sales for undergraduate and graduate students will take place separately, with details for each process to be announced later in the month. There will be 1,422 tickets allotted for undergraduates and 200 allotted for graduates.
The cost of a season ticket is $144 for undergraduates and $128 for graduate students. Payments may be made in cash, or with Visa, MasterCard, Discover, cashier’s check or money order. Personal checks and bursar charges will not be accepted.
This year’s ticket price is a substantial increase over last year’s price of $109. The reason for the increase is due to a reduction in the undergraduate student activity fee’s allotment to Athletics and Physical Education as well as the addition of ECAC playoff tickets to the season ticket plan. If first or second-round ECAC playoff games are not played at Lynah Rink, the ticket office will provide refunds to all season ticket holders.
“We tried to closely follow the recommendations by the Student Assembly,” Nighman said. “This was really a joint effort between the athletic department and the S.A.”
The men’s hockey team will begin its season on Oct. 22 with a 7 p.m. exhibition against McGill University.
Archived article by Owen Bochner
Sun Sports Editor