The Resale Market

When browsing StubHub for the extra CAN-SWE tickets, I had a look around at what some of the other events were going for. Pretty relevant as we obviously have some events we're looking to sell off.

As it turns out...we might be sitting on a gold mine. Assuming we could get the lowest prices listed currently for each section, this is what tickets we are willing to sell are going for right now on the resale market:

IH006 - CAT B - 2 @ $166 = $332
IH007 - CAT A - 4 @ $629 = $2516
IH007 - CAT B - 2 @ $530 = $1060
IH015 - CAT A - 2 @ $201 = $402
IH017 - CAT A - 4 @ $629 = $2516
IH017 - CAT B - 2 @ $452 = $904
IH030 - CAT A - 4 @ $819 = $3276


Grand Total = $11,006 USD or about $13,500 CAD

That all works under the assumption that Ben and Andrea would use tickets to all the Men's hockey games, and Pam and I would only goto IH030 - RUS-CZH.

Now I dont for a second expect to get those kinda prices, but hell....what if we still got 50%???

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More Tickets!

Well I'm now officially a felon. I participated in the illegal adventure that is ticket scalping. Actually, Pam and I bought a pair of tickets off StubHub...so that hardly counts.

Tickets for the Women's hockey games seem to be fairly under-priced...so we picked up a pair of tickets to the Canada vs. Sweden Women's game on Day 6 for $132 US a piece. I mean, thats certainly more than the $25 face value. But I will pay $150 CAD for one more Team Canada Olympic Hockey Game.

Another Canada Hockey Game...

I'm a just the slightest bit iffy on the fact that we went through StubHub, given VANOCs threats to invalidate tickets on the re-sale market. However, I figure that its mostly bluster, as actually tracking down and invalidating tickets is a pretty unrealistic endeavor.

Its also a bit of a bitch that we had to pay extra to get this game, as had VANOC not switched the schedule...we would have already had tickets to this one.

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Hotel = Booked, Flights = Expensive - Part III

Well...had a change of heart. We're going to fly direct both ways to Vancouver from Toronto. Booked the return flight for $448 each last night, flying out at 12:30 on March 1st. Once you figure the 'total cost' of going through Seattle, and the extra day off work it costs, and all the hassle....its just worth the extra $200 or so to fly direct.

So, with that...we're totally booked up! Tickets, flights, hotels...the whole deal. The final price tag for me:

Flight There - $448
Hotel - $1,118.35
Tickets - $1,406
Flight Home - $448

Grand Total: $3420.35

No wonder I have a steep credit card bill! At least though, I know I'll have this paid off long before I actually go on the trip. It'll be really nice to know that everything is all already bought and paid for when we're out there!

The only thing really left on the table is to get our tickets all finalized. Phase II tickets go on sale June 6th, so hopefully we'll be able to pick up a bit of a 'bonus' there....get ahold of one more event or something. And eventually, we still have to sell off or swap the crappy hockey tickets that we ended up with.

Either way, things are certainly rounding into form.

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Hotel = Booked, Flights = Expensive - Part II

Ok, so NOW its official...we're booked into the YWCA for the Olympics. There was a bit of a delay as our reservation had to be 'confirmed', but just this morning I sent in our final application form. Total cost for Pam and I came to $2236.69, half of which we have to put down now ($1118.35) and the other half in September.

In terms of flights, on Friday I booked our way out there. We're going to still take a direct flight out, rather than go through Seattle, primarily because the latter option would require us to take an extra day off work. The Seattle-Vancouver train leaves at 7:00 AM each day, so there is no way to get on that train except to be in Seattle the night before. The cost for just the way out there is $448.

Its just as well really, I prefer Air Canada over the American carriers.....and there is something to be said for the atmosphere that will be on that flight from Toronto to Vancouver the morning of the Opening Ceremonies.

We leave Pearson at 8:00 AM, and get into Vancouver for 10:14 AM. A quick shot up the Canada Line...and we'll be at the hotel!

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Vancouver Olympic Centre

Surfing the web, I came across a couple of really good pictures showing the inside of the Vancouver Olympic Centre. This will be the curling venue for the games.

Green and Blue Rings??

I'm still a little surprised that the venue only holds about 6,000 people. Watching the Brier this week, and the mid-week crowds of 14,000 at the Saddledome...one would think that you could push 20,000 for the curling venue at the Olympics when its in Canada. That being said, the 6,000 is double the venue size from the last two games...so thats saying something I guess.

One thing that is interesting is the large glass wall at the one end of the building. I would think that allowing direct sunlight, although architecturally awesome, would seriously screw with the ability of the ice team to keep a consistent sheet. Last thing you need is a mid-afternoon sun beating down on the ice.

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Hotel = Booked, Flights = Expensive

Kinda came out of nowhere, but we are going to be booking a hotel tomorrow! We're going to be residents of the YWCA Hotel, which has an amazing location and is coming pretty cheap.

Located spitting distance away from GM Place, I'm really surprised that we're getting this place for only $118 a night for Pam and I.

That will come in at $1184 each. Pretty solid for an 18 night stay.

Central Location Much?

So Pam and I will accept our offer tomorrow. Ben and Andrea have also 'applied' to stay there, and I don't see why they wouldn't be able to get a place as well.

The only downside to the place is that you share a bathroom with an adjacent room. However, if Ben and Andrea get in, we should be able to get our rooms assigned so that we're beside each other.

Anyways, in terms of flights...Air Canada wants $880 for a return flight from Toronto-Vancouver. By contrast, Buffalo-Seattle comes in at $240. The train from Seattle-Vancouver costs $60 return. So at almost 75% off, it might just be worth the extra hassle of getting to and from Buffalo.

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We're Boned....

Well we are boned...

VANOC/IIHF released the official hockey schedule today, and its not to our benefit. The six Team Canada games we had are now down to one, as they've pushed most of the Team Canada games to a 4:30 PT start so that they're afternoon starts on the east coast.

FUCK YOU VANOC / FUCK YOU IIHF

I suppose I should have expected this, but its still not cool at all.

So, with the schedule now 'official' we're at:
Day 2 - Women's - Canada vs Slovakia
Day 4 - Women's - Sweden vs. Slovakia
Day 5 - Men's - USA vs. Switzerland
Day 6 - Women's - Slovakia vs. Switzerland
Day 7 - Men's - USA vs. Norway
Day 10 - Men's - Russia vs. Czech Republic

The first and last are still decent, and we should be able to move the two USA Men's games....but what I'm gonna do with 4 tickets to the Women's SVK-SWI game....I have no friggin' idea....

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One Year Countdown...

Well as of today, there is less than one year to go till the Olympics. Kinda weird to think that in 365 days, Pammers and I will already be out there, gearing up for our first event....Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Slovakia.

We're currently starting to feel out what the marketplace is like in terms of places to stay. I'm going to be putting in an application for the YWCA across the street from GM Place, and apparently Ben has a line on a house we might be able to get. I'd really prefer to do the whole house thing I think, but having other plans is never a bad thing.

One year out, there has been a lot of talk about the 'Own The Podium' program, and what Canada's chances are of topping the medal podium out there. Although Canada has been totally kicking ass on the World Cup this winter (30 Medals this past weekend alone) I think that actually beating EVERYONE might be a little ambitious. Though, just today Canada swept the podium in Men's Aerials for the 2nd time this year....so who knows what is possible?

Now this is obviously a long shot, but what'd be just this side of amazing is, that with the Men's Gold Medal game being on the last day of the Games, if Canada went into the games tied with someone for the overall lead....needing the Win and Gold Medal to put us at the top. Canada winning gold in hockey AND getting the overall medal lead all at once?

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Bills, Bills, Bills....

So I finally sat down, broke out the abacus, and figured out the final costs for all the tickets. All in, we rung up $5,244 in ticket purchases. Due to the fact that Pammers and I are hitting up three extra events, our share of that pie is a little larger than for Ben and Andrea. The breakdown on what each of us spent goes a little something like this:

Scott - $1,406
Pam - $1,406
Ben - $1,216
Andrea - $1,216

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WJC Exhibition: Canada vs. Sweden

So this past Friday I had the chance to see the 2009-2009 WJC Team up close and personal at the ACC. Although its not strictly Olympics related, the game was an amazing preview to what I think we'll be in for come Vancouver.

Due to weather, the ACC was probably only about half full....but it was also probably twice as loud as any Leafs game I've ever been to. The Canadian Anthem was especially amazing...

Pictures are below...

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Last Call...

Friday, the final block of Olympic tickets went on sale. That means that Pam, Andrea, Cowie and I are now finished picking up tickets...at least legit tickets anyways.

The final tally goes something like this:

Day 2 - Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Slovakia
Day 4 - Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Switzerland
Day 5 - Men's Hockey - Canada vs. Qualifier 3
Day 6 - Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Sweden
Day 7 - Men's Hockey - Canada vs. Switzerland
Day 8 - Women's Curling
Day 9 - Short Track Speed Skating - W 1500m/M 1000m
Day 10 - Men's Hockey - Canada vs. USA
Day 11 - Women's Curling
Day 11 - Men's Curling
Day 12 - Women's Bobsled

Not a bad result....

We have 4 extra tickets to all the men's hockey games, so hopefully those will come in handy in regards to making a couple trades. I think the one thing that we're missing out on right now is, really, chances to see Canada actually win a medal. The Short-Track Speed Skating is the only 'Medal' event that we have right now!

Gotta Be A Lock?

Looking at days we have free still, and events we haven't got tickets for, I think getting tickets to the finals of the M/W Team Pursuit would be really good. I'd like to see at least one Long-Track event, and if there is anything we're almost going to get a medal in for sure, I'd think it'll be the Women's event there.

Anyways, a problem for another day...

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Next Steps

Starting tomorrow, there are a few more events that go on sale. Although some of them are complete shit, there are a couple of interesting events that I think we should go after:

Day 15 - Women's Paralell Giant Slalom Snowboarding
Day 12 - Women's Ski Cross OR Women's Bobsleigh
Day 9 - Men's Curling
Day 7 - Men's Hockey (For Trading)
Day 5 - Men's Hockey (For Trading)

Still talkin' it over with the crew...

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What We Won!

So its official what we got!

I was initially kinda dissapointed in what we ended up with, but the more time passes, the more comfortable and happy I am with what we have. Anything more really, and we'd have started having more than one event on some days, and I think that'd be too much.

We were lucky enough to get:
Day 2 - Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Slovakia
Day 4 - Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Switzerland
Day 5 - Men's Hockey - Canada vs. Qualifier 3
Day 6 - Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Sweden
Day 7 - Men's Hockey - Canada vs. Switzerland
Day 9 - Short Track Speed Skating - W 1500m, M 1000m
Day 10 - Men's Hockey - Canada vs. USA
Day 11 - Men's Curling
Day 12 - Women's Curling

Go Iggy!

That Men's Team Canada vs. Team USA game we actually have 8 tickets for, which will come in awfully handy when it comes to making trades/paying for accomodation!

Grand Total Right Now- About $4500....

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Credit Drops

Well if it’s the results, they're probably mixed at best.

Over the weekend Ben, Pam and I all had significant drops in our available credit limits. I'm down about $900, Ben down about $1500 and Pam around $2000. We'll have to wait and see, but I think this means that we're basically looking at Pam getting her OEP, all of us getting the preliminary hockey games we were after, one single event luge....and nothing else.

If that’s the case, I'm pretty surprised that Ben and I didn’t get any OEPs, even with the backups thrown in there. I'm also a little surprised that we didn't win ANY of the higher profile events that we went after like the snowboarding or gold medal curling games. Obviously we weren't going to get them all, but you think we'd get lucky and win the draw for at least one of them.

I suppose we'll have to wait for the official emails still, but it looks like we're going to end up getting just a little less than half of what we went after. If that’s the case, I think I'll at least want to go after some of the remainder tickets that go on sale on the 12th, in order to fill in some of the gaps!

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Waiting Not So Patiently...

Well as of yesterday, VANOC began charging everyone's VISA cards, though still no word on our applications. The official emails aren't expected until sometime next week, so we could still be waiting a few days.

So with that in mind, I thought it would be rather appropriate to document what we actually decided to go after in the end.

Over the course of our discussions, it became pretty clear that Cowie and Andrea couldn't commit to the full 17 day packages/plans that Pam and I were interested in, so some events are for 4 tickets, whereas others are just for 2. The general idea was to go after 3 OEP Packages, as these are what get allocated first, and then filling out the rest with single event tickets. The OEP packages were generally backed-up with alternates, with the single events being hit-or-miss.

Primary OEPs

Mixed OEP 8
Day 6 - Men's Snowboarding Halfpipe
Day 7 - Men's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Switzerland)
Day 7 - Victory Ceremony
Day 8 - Men's Ski Jumping

City OEP 20
Day 12 - Men's Curling
Day 13 - Ladies Aerials Finals
Day 14 - Women's Gold Medal Hockey Game
Day 14 - Victory Ceremony

City OEP 16
Day 9 - Short Track Speed Skating
Day 10 - Men's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. USA)
Day 10 - Victory Ceremony
Day 11 - Women's Curling
Day 11 - Men's Curling

Single Events

Day 2 - Women's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Slovakia)
Day 3 - Men's Luge Finals
Day 4 - Women's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Switzerland)
Day 5 - Men's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Qual3)
Day 6 - Women's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Sweden)
Day 6 - Men's Halfpipe Finals
Day 7 - Men's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Switzerland)
Day 7 - Women's Halfpipe Finals
Day 10 - Men's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. USA)
Day 14 - Women's Hockey Gold Medal
Day 15 - Women's Gold Medal Curling
Day 16 - Men's Gold Medal Curling

Backups

City OEP 7 (Mixed OEP 8)
Day 5 - Women's Hockey Preliminary (Russia vs. USA)
Day 6 - Men's Curling
Day 7 - Men's Hockey Preliminary (Canada vs. Switzerland)
Day 7 - Victory Ceremony

City OEP 21 (City OEP 20)
Day 14 - Women's Curling Semi-Final
Day 14 - Victory Ceremony
Day 15 - Speed Skating
Day 16 - Men's Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom

City Locals OEP 3 (City OEP 16)
Day 4 - Men's Snowboard Cross
Day 5 - Victory Ceremony
Day 7 - Women's Hockey Preliminary (Finland vs. USA)
Day 10 - Women's Curling
Day 15 - Men's Hockey Semi-Final

________________________

Expectations

I'm pretty much expecting to take in a haul. I'm cautiously optimistic. Not to jinx it. Having read through various newspaper articles and reports, it seems like an excessive amount of the $345 million dollars in applications were directed at two events: the opening ceremonies and the men's gold medal hockey game. That should leave plenty of tickets for the other events.

I'm expecting that we'll win 3 OEP's although not necessarily our primary choices. I think the one that we have the best chance of not getting would be City OEP 20, with the Women's Gold Medal hockey game which had 41,000 ticket requests. I still think we have a better than even shot here, just because I'd imagine the majority of those applications are single-event tickets rather than the OEP.

I don't expect to get single event tickets to the Men's or Women's Halfpipe or the single event tickets to the Women's Gold Medal Hockey game, there is no chance really. I think that its close to even money on the Men's or Women's Gold Medal Curling Games.....possible, but we'll need a touch of luck.

I fully expect to get all 6 of the Men's and Women's preliminary games, as VANOC has said that they didn't go to lottery. I'm really not sure if there are word to express how freaking nervous I am about these though. They should be a 'sure thing', but I'm worried that something will screw up. VANOC moving the games for an Eastern TV audience, our applications not going through right...something. Cause having tickets to ANY Team Canada Hockey games is insane, but having tickets to SIX?!!?

Come on!

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About Us

We're a group of six friends, blogging their way to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. We've been planning this trip since the Summer of 2008, and decided what better way to track our planning and adventures at the games than right here.

Scott Fraser - Currently based out of Toronto, and super excited about going to my first Olympics! I'm a huge hockey and curling fan, so what better way to see them than at an Olympics on Canadian soil?! More or less the head-blogger around these parts, if only by default, I can be reached via email here.



Beth Nicholls - Hi! I'm Beth! I'm also based out of Toronto and can't wait for the Olympics! I am a big figure skating fan; I used to skate for 15 years of my life. I'm also a hockey fan, even though I'm a terrible hockey player. I'm most excited for our 24 hours in Whistler!

The Rest - We've also got three more hangers-on...Jen, Andrea and Pam...but as of yet I haven't roped them into Blogging. Maybe once we're out at the games I'll finally be able to:)

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The Road To Here

I suppose the biggest motivation for starting a blog up at this particular time is that we're pretty much at D-Day in terms of finding out what tickets we've actually been lucky enough to win. Aside from the day I actually set foot in Vancouver, finding out what tickets we actaully win will probably be the most exciting thing about the whole process.

So with that in mind, a quick recap of what has transpired so far:

I suppose serious discussion regarding actually making this trip started sometime in the summer, when Cowie first committed to starting his Ph.D at UBC. That's certainly what got the wheels turning in my head in regards to how things might practially work anyways. I've always been a sports nut obviously, and a bit of a stereotypical Canadian in terms of sports at that, so obviously the Winter Olympics on home soil is a huge draw for me. I suppose in a way I'd been considering it ever since Vancouver was even awarded the games.

Starting back in September, pretty much as soon as VANOC released the information, Cowie and I started looking into the ticket packages and what we wanted to attend in broad terms. Hockey was obviously on the top of our list, but we both really wanted to see a variety of events. Curling, snowboarding, speed skating....basically the whole package. As a result of the number of events we wanted to see, our early budget estimates got blown out of the water pretty quickly. Talk of going for 'About $1000' in tickets quickly evolved into going for 'About $2000' in tickets and beyond.

Over the month of October, Cowie and I did the leg-work investigating the various OEPs and Single Events that we wanted to attend, and tried to figure out the best way of actually winning the tickets we wanted. Thats when we basically came to the realization that having four people on board was gonna be much better than just two. It made it easier to go after more events, and also greatly reduced the 'up-front' costs we might have been looking at. Enter Pam and Andrea.

Eventually we settled on a plan that I think all would agree was pretty solid. I think the big breakthrough came when, being the big planning nerd that I am, I was able to acertain which pre-lim hockey games would be Team Canada games. Using the IIHF's draw sheet, and cross referencing it with the 2008 Rankings, it was pretty easy to figure out what events to go for. I think that this basically formed the crux of our entire ticket packaging approach, as just about all the OEPs we went after had one of those preliminary games in it.

When it was all said and done, we divided our selected events into 3 packages. Pam, Cowie and I each threw in an application, covering everything that we were after. All told, we're in for a maximum of $10,024 dollars.

Holy crap....

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My Opening Ceremonies

Well here we are then...the start. I suppose every trip has to begin somewhere, and although this isn't the very first thought or discussion on our trip to the Olympics, it is certainly the first time that I've attempted to keep any kind of a record.

Its my hope to use this space to record and eventually look back on all the crazyness that not only took place during our time in Vancouver, but also all the work, preparation and excitement that went into planning our trip. Once the Games actually start, I plan to use this as a Virtual Scrapbook, serving as the unending record of what will hopefully be the trip of a lifetime!

I'm also hoping that Ben, Andrea and Pam will be game enough to join in on this, adding their own thoughts and recollections to the process.

As for my role...allow me to begin presently....

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