This year student tickets for the 93rd Bowdoin-Colby men’s hockey game were distributed differently than in the past—they were released 100 at a time, in six separate increments on Monday and Tuesday.
As a result, some students waited in David Saul Smith Union for as long as an hour to get their tickets, and some of those who waited in line were turned away—the Athletics Department ultimately only released 525 tickets, 75 fewer than initially announced.
“I don’t think it’s a good system,” said Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze.
He said that he thinks the major problem is the limit on available student tickets.
“I personally wish we had enough tickets that every student was able to go. I don’t like having to limit who gets to go,” he said.
The Athletics Department does not release enough tickets for the entire student body. According to Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan, a certain number of tickets are set aside every year for alumni, staff, community members and Colby students. In addition, the Athletics Department recalled 75 of the student tickets that were set to be given out on Tuesday at 4 p.m., leaving only 25 for distribution during the final block.
Ryan said that the athletics department recalled the tickets to accommodate members of the Bowdoin community who are traveling to attend the game.
“Under the theory that students are here on campus already, it seemed like it might be an easier process for students to be the ones who went to the will-call table for tickets that might be released, rather than people who might be traveling to campus for the game,” he said. “Time will tell if that was a good idea or not.”
Hintze also attributes the rush for tickets this year to the fact that they were distributed in a more central location—the Student Activities Desk. In previous years, they were distributed from the Athletics Department office on the second floor of the Peter Buck Center for Health and Fitness.
“People didn’t know where second floor Buck was,” said Hintze.
“They would post it in the [Student] Digest that tickets were available at Buck, and I don’t think a lot of students read the Student Digest,” he added.
Last year, the Student Activities Office offered to distribute the tickets in the Union during one time slot. According to Hintze, this solved the location problem but led to other inconveniences.
“There was a complete run on the tickets, so if you had class at nine in the morning, you didn’t get a ticket,” he said.
As a result, the Student Activities Office created this year’s system, in which 100 tickets were distributed during each one-hour block.
Some students expressed annoyance about the limited number of tickets available to them.
“We have a large enough stadium to hold everyone on campus, so it would be more logical to have everyone have a ticket,” said Ben Wolf ’18. “It’s definitely a lot more trouble than students should have to go to to see the game.”
However, others praised the more convenient pickup location for the tickets.
“I liked the blocks and doing it there [in the Union], first of all because I didn’t have to walk the stairs, and second of all because whenever they had it before, I wasn’t awake or I had class at that time. So I think this is a little bit better,” said Westly Garcia ’17.
Both Hintze and Ryan agree that there are kinks in the system that will need to be worked out in future years.
“I think what we’ll do is sit down after the game has been played and think about how we distribute tickets and see if there’s a better way for us to do it next year,” said Ryan.