Lost in the Wilds of UK Sports: Flight to Chicago

After attending 17 sporting events in 15 days in three countries it was time to go home. Here were my stats:

I attended 12 games in England, 3 in Scotland and 2 in Finland.

I attended 10 soccer matches consisting of 4 English Premier League, 2 Champions League, 1 Europa League, 1 Scottish Premier League and 2 Carling Cup.
I attended 2 rugby matches – 1 in the Guinness Premiership and 1 in the Magners League.
I attended 2 county cricket matches – both Division I and Division II.
I attended 2 NHL games – the first regular season NHL games in Finland.
I attended 1 NBA game – probably the least exciting from a global standpoint.

My flight was scheduled for 2:40 pm so once again I packed up my stuff, said bye to Big Chris and took the underground to London’s Heathrow airport. The trip was a great experience but it was time to get home to Nicole.

Traveling to London from Helsinki

When I originally planned my journey around the United Kingdom, I knew I would attend the Arsenal match versus Blackburn Sunday afternoon at 1:30 pm and Hospitality Jim had a ticket waiting for me for the game.

In order to partake in all of the festivities I needed to take an early flight as the Arsenal boys usually meet up for brunch three hours before kickoff. Thus, I booked an 8:00 am flight out of Helsinki that was scheduled to land in London at 9:10 am.

In order to get to my 8:00 am flight I needed to wake up at 5:00 am and take the 5:50 am Finnair bus from the Helsinki train station to the Helsinki airport. There were actually other people on the bus with me at that time.

We arrived at the airport before 6:30 am. I checked in and now had an hour wait before my flight would board. Not my ideal scenario but at least I was at the airport. I walked over the cafeteria to grab a soda or coffee and rest. To my surprise about 25% of everyone in the cafeteria had a beer, wine or cocktail of some sort. Had all these people stayed up all night and were still partying? Do Finnish drink this early when they fly? Rather than debate the issue I did as the Finnish and grabbed myself a beer to pass the time.

NHL in Helsinki: Blackhawks at Panthers

For the first time in ten days, I was attending two games in as many days in the same city.

Pre Game Dining
Since there was nowhere to eat around the arena before the game Friday night, I chose to eat at Zetor before getting on the train to Hartwall Areena. Zetor is just a couple of blocks from the Helsinki train station. The restaurant was recommended by Let’s Go as a good Finnish restaurant. I was disappointed with the “Finnish” meal I ordered at Zetor but overall the restaurant was good.

Selling Tickets
For the second night in a row I needed to sell the other three tickets I sold on Friday night. However, tonight proved to be more difficult as there was a group of kids undercutting the market. They had 139 euro tickets and were willing to part with them for as low as 25 euros which makes it difficult to sell tickets that are 120 euros face value. I ended up selling all 3 seats for 100 euros.

I actually learned quite a bit trying to sell these tickets in a cutthroat environment.

1) As soon as I arrived outside the box office a couple arrived and paid 150 euros for two tickets from the group of kids. I did not undercut the kids because the night before everyone was civilized and let you negotiate with the buyers you talked to first. What I did not realize was that these kids would steal my buyers from me later. At a point I had all three tickets sold for 150 euros but the kids shouted out a lower price which I did not want to sell at the time – 40 euros per ticket. I realized that I should have undercut the kids when the first couple arrived. I thought about it but backed off.
2) Remember to not hold your price too high for too long. As already stated, I could have sold my tickets for 40 euros each, but ended up only receiving approximately 33 euros each. Although you never know who is showing up next to buy tickets, if there are a lot of tickets being sold you will need to take any reasonable offer that comes your way. I use this approach when buying tickets all the time so I should have transferred my knowledge to selling tickets better than I did.
3) While trying to sell the tickets, a guy from Finland (who was also trying to sell tickets) and I started talking. We talked to each other about what tickets were selling for and what we were willing to accept. However, we never discussed being a team to sell our tickets. Just before I sold the tickets for 100 euros, a group of three guys came up to me and wanted to pay 50 euros each. But, one member of the group was talking to my “friend” as well. My friend offered him better seats for a lower price. If we were willing to split the profits we would have made more money.

Hartwall Areena
Last night I decided to check out the Silver Star Café during the first intermission. There were a group of Chicago fans sitting in the area where you could watch the game and order drinks at the same time. The best location is by the couches on the right side of the bar facing the ice.

During the first intermission, I met two guys from Finland and we ended up watching the remainder of the game from the café as we talked with the guys who had vacationed from Chicago to watch the games. The craziest part of the night was when one of the Finnish guys “supposedly” lost his wallet. At first I thought this was a scam to get me to buys some drinks but he ended up finding his wallet and bought a few rounds since he was so relieved.

The Game
While Friday night’s game went to shootout, tonight’s game was just the opposite as the Blackhawks shutout the Panthers 4-0 to split the two-game series in Helsinki. Once again, a Finnish player was the star of the game. This time it was Antti Niemi – the Blackhawks goaltender who blocked all 23 shots the Panthers attempted.

Post Game
After the game I took the train back to the city center with my new Finnish friends. They wanted to go to a club but since my flight was departing Helsinki at 8:00 am to get back to London I only wanted to go out shortly before heading back to the hotel.

As we got off the train, we walked by Sport Pub Chelsea. Sport Pub Chelsea is attached to the train station and turned out to be the “official” Blackhawks’ hang out. We watched the Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues game from Stockholm, Sweden.

While we were watching the game we talked to three fans from Chicago who attended the game on Friday night, but did not attend the game Saturday night. The reason they did not attend Saturday night – tickets were supposedly too expensive (which they were if you only considered face value). I told them I had sold my three tickets for 100 euros total and they nearly fell out of their seats. They flew all the way from Chicago and only attended one game. Not because they wanted to attend one but only because of cost. If the tickets were cheaper they would have chosen to attend both games. This is why people should understand the secondary ticket market better than they do.

At 11:30 pm I headed back to my hotel as I needed to wake up at 5 am to get to my 8 am flight.

Day in Helsinki, Finland

For only the fourth time this trip, I had a free day in the town in which I was staying. The other three were my first day in London, a day in Newcastle and a day in Manchester. Today I decided to do some site seeing since I was not sure when I would get back to Helsinki in the future.

My day started by eating the breakfast that was included in my hotel room. It was a great European breakfast.

After that I went touring around Helsinki for a few hours where I saw the Esplanadi, a farmer’s market, Uspenski Cathedral, Senate Square and Tuomiokirkko and took a walk through the Botanic Garden and along the waterfront.

NHL in Helsinki: Panthers at Blackhawks

Even though my plane was on time I did not arrive at the hotel until 5 pm. After checking in, I left for the game immediately which started at 7 pm. In order to get to Hartwall Areena, I took the train from the main Helsinki train station to the Pasila train station (the first stop after the main train station). I paid for my ticket (2 euros) but quickly realized that there was no reason to buy one since nobody would actually check my ticket on such a short journey. I arrived at the arena shortly before 5:30 pm.

Pre Game Dining
There was nowhere to eat around the stadium. It was just a stadium in the midst of train tracks since we were so close to the Helsinki train station. Since I needed to sell three tickets to the game I did not have time to eat anyway but I would be sure to eat downtown tomorrow night.

Selling Tickets
As with any game that is not sold out I expected to receive less than face value for the tickets (97 euros each). However, another factor was involved that I did not expect – most fans attending the game had already purchased tickets as well. This meant that it was even more difficult to sell the tickets for the game. Not to mention the fact that there were about a dozen other fans trying to sell their tickets as well. Using most of the tricks I know from buying tickets, I tried to make as much money as possible selling these tickets. I ended up receiving 40 euros each for the tickets after spending about 90 minutes trying to sell them.

Hartwall Areena
Hartwall Areena is a regular European arena – there did not appear to be anything special. As was the case when I attended hockey matches in Prague in 2001, you can buy beer from the concession stands but cannot drink it in your seat. However, to get around that rule you can buy beer from the Silver Star Café. If you have a good spot in the café you can watch the game and buy drinks from the bar.

The Game
In the first regular season NHL game in Finland, the Chicago Blackhawks and Florida Panthers went to overtime and a shootout. Ville Koistinen, the only Finnish skater on either team, scored the winning goal in the shootout to give the Panthers a 4-3 win.

The Blackhawks had 55 shots on goal and was the only game I have ever attended where a team had 50 shots on goal in regulation time. I have only seen a team have 50 or more shots on goal twice before and both of those games were overtime games in the playoffs.

1) May 8, 1996: the Colorado Avalanche had 57 shots versus the Blackhawks in a three overtime playoff game.
2) June 6, 1995: the Detroit Red Wings had 51 shots versus the Blackhawks in a two overtime playoff game.

The attendance of 12,056 seemed low for the first regular season NHL game held in Helsinki. However, the low attendance was probably due to the fact the ticket prices for the game were ridiculously expensive with the cheapest ticket being 97 euros and it only went up from there.

Post Game
After the game I took the train back to downtown (no ticket this time) and went back to the hotel to go to sleep.

Tickets for Blackhawks and Panthers Games in Helsinki

In addition to booking hotels on Monday, September 28 while I was at the Britannia Hotel in Manchester, I did some research on buying tickets to the Blackhawks and Panthers games in Helsinki. Tickets were still available from Hartwell Areena where the games would be played. Since tickets were still available I figured I could show up at the arena and buy tickets on the secondary ticket market (I’m not sure why I was so confident I could buy tickets on the secondary market for the hockey games in Helsinki but not for the soccer matches I attended in the United Kingdom).

However, that same day I found a craigslist ad on the Helsinki site that stated a guy had four tickets to each game. His trip had been cancelled and he needed to sell his tickets. I emailed the guy and offered to pay him half price for one ticket to each game.

He wrote me back asking me if I was Finnish and if I would help him sell the tickets. I told him I would sell the tickets for him outside of the arena if he emailed me the tickets.

On Wednesday night after the Manchester United Champions League we talked on the phone – he wanted proof I was a real person. We agreed that I would receive a free ticket to each game and a percentage of whatever the tickets sold for.

He emailed me the tickets on Thursday and I printed them out after the Fulham match at Big Chris’ house. Now I needed to sell the tickets before each game in Helsinki.

Flight to Helsinki, Finland

On Thursday night I booked my hotel for Helsinki. I normally book hotels at this last minute. First, it limits my options if not many hotels are available – making my decision easier. Second, it allows me to receive good deals if the hotels discount their rooms since nobody will be staying in them. Third, if I change my plans I do not need to cancel one hotel room and rebook.

I made a reservation at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel. The rate was 67.20 euros per night which was not much more than the hostels I considered.

I had originally booked the 10:20 am flight from London Heathrow to Helsinki rather than the earlier flight because, as I wrote in a prior post, I was unaware whether Fulham or Everton would be home on Thursday night in a Europa League match. However, it was a good decision as the London underground would not have gotten me to the earlier flight on time. The tube does not open until 5:45 am so I would have needed to determine another way to get to Heathrow.

Instead I left Big Chris’ house around 7:45 am and was at Heathrow at 9:00 am. My only concern with the flight was that if it was late I might miss some of the Florida Panthers and Chicago Blackhawks game I was planning to attend Friday night. The puck dropped at 7 pm so there was not much wiggle room with my schedule.

The flight took off on time (10:20 am) and landed on time (3:15 pm). FinnAir runs a shuttle from the airport to the Helsinki train station for 5.90 euros. It runs frequently and is a convenient way to get from the airport to downtown Helsinki.