Photo by: Michael Furman
Hockey fans set up and slept in about 40 tents in front of the Ritchie Center box office to make sure they would be able to purchase tickets for the upcoming season before the tickets sold out.
A group of freshmen pitched the first tent Friday morning, more than 24 hours before the box office opened.
Hundreds of other fans formed the line on the north side of the Ritchie Center.
Nearly 350 student tickets were sold, according to a spokesperson for the division of athletics and recreation, which was not a sellout of season tickets available to students.
As the night came, some gathered around a sidewalk campfire to roast S’Mores and listen to techno music that lasted into the wee hours of the morning.
Early Saturday, the hockey team and head coach George Gwozdecky treated fans to donuts and thanked them for their support and overnight vigil.
Gwozdecky said the showing of support meant a lot to the team.
“To show my appreciation, Jake’s season tickets are on me,” Gwozdecky said.
Gwozdecky posed for a photograph with freshman Jake Muniz, who was first in line.
Then, Gwozdecky whipped out his own credit card and told Muniz that he would pay for his season tickets.
Gwozdecky and his players mingled with the crowd, shaking hands and asking questions.
Gwozdecky and his players mingled with the crowd, shaking hands and asking questions.
Muniz along with a group of friends, including fellow freshmen Chris Saunders, Natalie Margason, Brittney Willis, Noosha Aftahi, Joseph Ruybal and Hannah Stumpp, put up his tent early Friday.
The friends encountered a problem when they realized it was impossible to stake the 20-person tent into the concrete-paved spot they had chosen to call theirs.
The solution they came up with was to haul recycling bins which they filled wither rock and tied the tent ropes to them.
Besides the obvious goal of obtaining the first batch of season tickets the group was motivated by something else.
“The class of 2013 wants to promote school spirit,” Margason said. “We, as a group, feel that spirit is lacking and that’s why we decided to be first in line.”
The group holds big hopes for the hockey season.
“We don’t want to jinx it, but were going to bring home a title,” Ruybal said.
On Oct. 4 Denver hosts the University of Calgary in an exhibition match. The puck drops at 6:07 p.m. The regular-season opener is against 2009 Frozen Four finalist Vermont in early October.
