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.