Boston College Students Bought Beanpot Tickets Through Link Reserved for Harvard Undergrads

When Harvard released the link to buy tickets to Beanpot — the annual hockey tournament between Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, and Northeastern — for its students, Harvard undergraduates weren’t the only fans to flood the queue.

A link to the tickets was shared among students at Boston College, some of whom were able to purchase tickets reserved for Harvard students.

Harvard Athletics sent an email to students with a link to purchase Beanpot tickets shortly after noon on Jan. 16. It is unclear whether Boston College students accessed the Ticketmaster page from the link sent directly to students or another link found on the Harvard Athletics webpage.

The email told undergraduates they could “secure their tickets using their Harvard email address,” but students did not have to input their Harvard email or identification number at any point on the site.

According to several students at the College, Harvard undergraduate tickets sold out shortly after the link was sent.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson James Chisholm wrote in a statement that he thought it was most likely the link had been shared by Harvard students with their peers at BC. He added that Beanpot ticket sales do not require student verification because tickets are purchased through TD Garden and its approved vendors.

According to Chisholm, the link for Harvard tickets went live two days before sales begin for “testing purposes.” But Chisholm wrote that there was “no ‘leak’ or any unauthorized early access to Harvard student tickets,” and ticket sales were not processed until the link was sent.

Arham N. Shah, a freshman at Boston College, said he had multiple friends who purchased tickets through Harvard’s link to avoid the long queues on the BC link.

“​​​​The BC ones got sold out really quickly, and they knew that less people from Harvard were getting those tickets,” Shah said.

Boston College spokesperson Jack Dunn wrote in a statement that the university was not aware of “BC students accessing Beanpot tickets via Harvard’s student link.”

“I am told that BC’s student ticket allotment sold out very quickly, which is not surprising given the team’s success and popularity on campus,” Dunn added.

Boston College students were notified that Beanpot tickets would go on sale two days in advance of their Jan. 16 release, and tickets were set to go live at 8:30 a.m.

While Harvard students were notified of the ticket sales on Jan. 16, the promotional code for student tickets went live six days before.

Marcos Johnson-Noya ’26 said this was frustrating for him, since he wasn’t able to get a ticket by the time he saw and opened the link.

“I wish they would advertise the tickets, maybe earlier in advance,” Johnson-Noya said.

Dunn said Boston College students were offered tickets through BC’s link. The tickets were priced by TD Garden at $26.50 for center balcony seats and $20.50 for corner balcony seats. They quickly sold out.

Tickets are now only available through resale vendors. On SeatGeek, tickets start at $56 for the men’s semifinal and $71 for the final.

BC freshman Kate Goodman said there were already 7,000 people ahead of her in the queue when she got the link.

Another BC freshman, Annie Hallinan, said that she went on the BC queue five minutes before ticket sales began and was 3,000th in line. After the tickets sold out, Halinan said she spent $106 on a resale ticket from StubHub.

Although it is unclear how a ticket link was originally circulated to the students, Goodman said the link was circulated by BC upperclassmen, as well as posted on Fizz, an anonymous forum app restricted to BC students.

Links to purchase tickets from Harvard have been publicized on the anonymous forum website Reddit in past years, with posts most recently from three years ago with links to the Harvard Athletics ticket site.

One poster on the BC subreddit wrote to “contact the Harvard box office” if tickets are difficult to access. The post adds that students “can almost always get in that way.”

“My understanding is this exact scenario has played out regularly through the years,” Chisholm, the FAS spokesperson, wrote.

BC freshman Nick Rowe said that he overheard students discussing buying Harvard tickets after BC’s were sold out, allegedly saying that “we need all our fans there for when we win the whole thing.”

“I do feel bad, because they really shouldn’t be taking those from Harvard students who also have the same right to go into the game,” Rowe added.

Luca F. Alagaband ’28 said it was “unfortunate” that he was unable to buy tickets after waiting in the queue, but that it would not deter him from trying to buy tickets in the future.

“I’m a big hockey fan, so it was a little upsetting. I wanted to get that cool experience,” Alagaband said. “But I’ll try again next year.”

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves.

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.