(Night) Time in Line at Lynah
Issue date: 11/5/04 Section: Sports
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We'd just finished dinner. Even before I picked up the phone, I knew that it was time. I hurriedly packed the leftovers away in Tupperware containers and piled the dishes in the sink, apologizing profusely to my guests even as I ushered them out the door. The game was on and I was ready to join the august ranks of The Lynah Faithful.
Last year I'd failed to get tickets in what I refer to as The Great Hockey Ticket Debacle of '03. Basically, over 2000 students converged in one spot in an attempt to secure one of the 800 line numbers that would later enable them to purchase up to two Big Red season tickets. Phil Greenberg, MBA '05, Thi Ly, PhD '05, and I, disappointed and disgruntled, resolved to camp out for a week if needed to secure 2004/2005 season tickets.
Phil arrived at Barton Hall first, securing graduate student line number 55, and I picked up 56. I was so focused on Getting A Line Number, that I didn't even realize that Phil was standing in front of me. Eventually we managed to amass eight line numbers which potentially represented 16 tickets. Now we just had to make sure that there would be a body with an ID card for every two line numbers for the next few nights.
Thi, Phil, Rouzan and I camped out the first night. Despite all our talk leading up to The Great Event, Thi, Phil and I were horribly unprepared. We spent an uncomfortable, noisy night in Barton Hall. The ground was hard, kids were playing basketball and football all night, and we (at least I) felt too old to be camping out for hockey tickets. Then there were the line checks. We were like over-caffeinated bunnies, hopping up each time they called any line number, worried that we'd miss our line check and thereby forfeit our tickets. They finally released us at 5:45 a.m., and we straggled home to get ready for class.
I missed class that Thursday. A very rare event for me, but I felt that ensuring the success of Operation Lynah was a critical component of my JGSM adventure, and, painful though it was, I needed to take the time to ensure smooth transition of the coming shifts.
Thursday night passed more smoothly. We had air mattresses, pillows, blankets, food, homework and Beverages. The exhausted administration even turned off the lights at around 2:00 a.m. so that we could get some much needed sleep, only to wake us a few hours later to resume the line checks. And again, we straggled home at 6:00 a.m., knowing that the most difficult part of the wait - the 24+ hours in the Ramin Room at Bartels - was yet to come. How would we find the coverage when people had assignments, presentations and projects due?
We managed to do it, with people like Dan White joining the ranks of the JGSM Lynah Faithful by pulling a 12-hour shift beginning at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning. But there were a few pesky hours that we just could not get coverage. So I called a group meeting (thank you Nicolas and Digby!), as did Sara (thanks Jeff and Chad!), and we managed to fill the empty time slots.
That was Friday night, probably the most fun of any of the nights spent camping out for tickets. It was also the most bizarre. People brought their laptops, sleeping bags and air mattresses. They also brought couches, game boys, projection TVs and a foosball table! Every inch of the floor of the Ramin Room was covered; scurrying across the room for line checks was challenging to say the least. A band played, the climbing wall was open for climbers and the team came out to sign autographs. The next day our spirits were buoyed with the peppy tunes of the band.
All told, we spent 170 hours in either Barton Hall or the Ramin Room camping out for tickets. We were tired and cranky, but ecstatic. We had done our "(Night) Time in Line" and had Big Red Season Tickets!