113 Tickets For My Friends

I'm one of those people who snoozed until 10 a.m. on Monday.

Just as I was deciding that it would be a pretty good idea to take a hot shower. I thought of a friend of mine who had been standing in a line since the wee hours of the morning so that she could buy my tickets for this weekend's ECAC hockey playoffs.

My friend came through with flying colors. Now I've got tickets in the fourth row of the student section for both games.

But my friend arrived at Harvard Hall at 4:30 a.m., at least an hour and a half before sunrise. Students whose friends showed up in the Yard just as the sun was rising aren't as happy as me. They didn't get tickets, because their friends were too late. You see, everybody else in line also had at least a few friends to buy for, so all of the available tickets--2000 of them--were gobbled up by the time that I stepped out of the bathtub.

Pressured

But now Athletic Director John P. Reardon '60 thinks something went wrong. He said the whole affair was "too pressured." He feels that injustices occurred in distributing the tickets, so he decided to rectify the situation in case the icemen make it to the final rounds of the playoffs and another set of tickets goes on sale.

Now, each person can only buy two tickets if he chooses to purchase them at Harvard. (It's true that the next rounds of the playoffs take place in the Boston Garden, and you can buy as many tickets as you want there, but that means that you'll probably be far away from the raucous student section.)

What all this means is that those of us who slept in on Monday will have to stand in line with our friends next Tuesday, if Harvard has a good weekend. At least we won't have to get up early, though. To prevent these all-night endurance contests my friend said it was fun, standing in the cold night for hours--before they become an unpleasant hockey ritual. Reardon has decided not to put the 1000 tickets up for sale until 2 p.m.

Still, late-sleepers are all going to have to stand in line, unless we each find a benevolent friend.

At lunch yesterday, a bunch of us--we're sitting together at the game--sat around the table griping that Reardon completely overreacted to the Monday morning rush.

One guy at the lunch table--his nose was dripping because he had a cold--just sat there slurping his vegetable beef soup without participating in the conversation. Finally he broke his silence and said. "You guys, I stood in that line for four hours and I didn't get tickets. I really don't see how one person can take as many tickets as he wants to, buying out the entire University. It's just not fair."

We all gave him dirty looks, so he just continued to gulp down his soup and wipe his nose. None of us really knew who he was.

After lunch, I was so upset that I decided to call Reardon and tell him my concerns. He was happy to talk to me and after I finished, he threw me this line: "I think that I've tried to come up with what is a fair and rational decision. I may have over-reacted, but only if we sell 40 tickets, because no one wants to stand in line. I don't think that will be a problem, however."

Sure Mr. Reardon, I thought, you can't continue a policy that permits one Joe to buy for 113 of his buddies. But how about 10, or eight? Not all of us want to stand in line.

"Hey, I hate lines too, and I hate to stand in them." Reardon said. "But I think that the person who goes and stands in line should have at least an equal shot at getting tickets with the guy who sits in his room. Somebody who wants to buy 12 tickets can go to the Garden."

The Garden? Who wants to go to the Garden to buy tickets? And who wants to sit with a bunch of couples from the class of 1940? On the other hand, I really don't want to spend my Tuesday afternoon dirtying my feet and leaning against brick walls here at Harvard.

I just want to go to the game--I really don't care how I get there.