Lucky ones win chance to buy Olympic tickets today

If you are a student or employee of Kwantlen, and Monday is your lucky day, you may have gotten a chance to buy tickets to the 2010 Olympic Games.

A total of 1,118 students and 264 employees entered their names in the draw for tickets to the 57 events available to Kwantlen for the upcoming winter games, according to Peter Chevrier, director of marketing and communications for Kwantlen.

People who won the right to purchase tickets were being notified by e-mail late in the day Monday and will have seven days to decide whether to purchase the offered tickets or not.

If the first person passes on the tickets, then they will be offered to a second person, selected by the random number generating computer software, and so on until all tickets are purchased.

Hockey was the most requested event in the draw, with 844 people requesting tickets to the men’s gold medal game. The least requested event was figure skating with only 333 people putting their names forward for tickets the men’s short program.

The draw, which took place on Kwantlen’s Surrey campus, was witness by two people who weren’t participating in the ticket lottery, to ensure accuracy and fairness.

Students, staff can turn luck – and money – into Olympic tickets

Kwantlen students and staff can win the chance to purchase tickets to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

As a community contributor partner with VANOC, one of the opportunities available to the university is the chance to purchase tickets for a variety of events at the 2010 Games. Kwantlen has decided to pass that perk along to students and employees by way of a random draw. The draw is open to anyone who is an employee or is attending Kwantlen as a student during the 2009-’10 academic year.

“We (Kwantlen) have made 176 of 178 tickets available for the draw,” said Peter Chevrier, director of marketing for the university. The two tickets not being made available, which are for a preliminary men’s ice hockey game, were donated to a raffle to support the United Way campaign.

Anyone interested in winning the chance to buy tickets can make their request through the Kwantlen 2010 Olympic Games ticket request website, which is now online.

All tickets will be sold at face value and are available at a wide range of prices for a wide range of events. Events include everything from $1,100 opening ceremony tickets to $50 men’s freestyle skiing aerials qualifying event tickets. Tickets are even up for grabs for the men’s ice hockey gold medal game, if you can afford the $775-a-ticket price.

The final draw and notification of those who have been chosen for tickets will be done on Monday, Dec, 14. According to Chevrier, the luckier you are the more tickets you will have the chance of buying as there is no limit on the number of events one person’s entry can be selected for.

Once notified, people will have seven days to decide whether they want to buy the tickets. Tickets that are not purchased will be made available to others through a re-drawing.