Re: Frozen 4 Priority Number Confirmation email
Actually, that has usually not been the case, technically. Depending on the host arena (I'm guessing), many times (since '95 at least) I have received a letter during the late summer acknowledging that I "won" the lottery and that told me what my seat locations were going to be. So at least some of the arenas did give out seat assignments much earlier than when the actual tickets were cut and sent out.
My recollection remains different, but you could be right.
You're certainly correct about some of the years; I guess we're differing about what happened the
majority of the time. I do remember the "you won" letters as being standard. But over the course of the 11 years, I still think we had to wait until later for the seat assignments "most" of the time. Sometimes we didn't know until the tickets themselves arrived.
Could very well be that for the more recent years you're correct. I paid very close attention to the lottery from it's start in 2002 through the Detroit. Since then I've fallen off the wagon a bit. Non-hockey factors have gotten in the way of my FF experience the last few years -- particularly the time immediately following the tournament when I used to do a detailed lottery analysis. Also, for the last three years, all lottery applicants have gotten tickets. That's made the subject a little less compelling.
Gotta admit, the new system has rekindled my interest, if nothing else.
EDIT: 1995 through 2001 weren't lotteries, they were first come, first served sales. Sometimes there were complications, such as when attendees at the 2000 Regional in Albany got preference for the same seats for the 2001 FF. But the point remains that applications were filled in the order received. Under those circumstances, I can easily imagine that the confirmation letter included the seat location. Although I purchased tickets for all but one of those tournaments, I honestly have no recollection either way on this.
Most of the premiums are held for corporate partners, the Hobey comittee (my friend always has awesome seats...bastard!
) etc and will never see the light of day. However, I severely doubt even the mighty NCAA has enough partners to warrant them keeping ALL 1900 seats.
Ah. So members of the public on the wait list aren't trying to access a block of 1900 seats. The number will be much smaller, and there's even a slight possibility of no public sale at all. VERY difficult to bypass the lottery and count on the premium seats under this scenario.
I was selling suite tickets last year in Tampa for $375 for the three games. I expect they will approach the $500 mark in Pittsburgh and Philly. Much higher than that and I'll have to pass as $375 was close to the breaking point for people last year, and suite tickets hit the secondary markets for $200.
Interesting. I'll describe that as high end, but not off the chart for a suite. While beyond the budget of most Frozen Four attendees, filling up one suite with USCHO people could still work. Hope so!
It really is a crappy policy, but I'm not sure how much of the blame goes on the NCAA and how much goes on CEC.
Good question.
I will say that at least now the public has a
chance to get in on the premium seats. While I stand by the critique in my last post, I'd certainly allow that this is better than being precluded entirely. Who gets credit for the positive angle? We don't know that either. We will get a little insight on these issues when see Philly's ticket set-up. In other words, is this year's set-up for Pittsburgh only, or are these permanent changes made by the NCAA?
In any event, the credit/blame factor isn't my primary interest here. Rather, the main goal is helping USCHO members do as well as they can in the ticket process, whatever that system winds up being in any given year.
