Snow Day?

It's the last day of March, and it seems that mother nature has a little April Fool's joke a day early for us Minnesotans: 4-8 inches of snow. This is so strange! It's the Minnesota Twins home opener today at the HHH Metrodome, and we're getting a snow storm. Surprisingly, or not, I guess, we've been pretty crazy busy today. When it comes to the Minnesota Twins, as with any sport, the home opener is one of the hottest games of the year. Everyone's a fan at the beginning of the season.

Traditionally, Minnesota fans in general are pretty bandwagon-y. They're only interested in seeing their teams when they're playing well. Which, well, it's just got to be expected. In reality, no one wants to go to a game to see their team lose. Hopefully the Minnesota Twins can have a better season this year, maybe even make it to the playoffs again! Hey, a girl can hope, even if we don't have Johan Santana. On the plus side, we do have Francisco Liriano back on the roster after recovering from his Tommy John surgery. My cousin actually had the same surgery about a month after Liriano did, performed by the same doctor, and he's supposed to be able to play again this spring, as well.

I keep getting distracted by the snow. It looks kind of pretty I guess. No, it really doesn't. It's blowing sideways. Which means slow drivers and a slow commute to the gym after work today. I guess you never know what kind of weather you're going to get when you live in Minnesota! I walked down to Cossetta's for lunch today, I love their gorgonzola salad - they load it with that blue cheese dressing that is so NOT good for you but is so worth it. The streets were super slushy, kind of like the snow is halfway melting when it hits the ground but still retaining somewhat of a frozen texture. Time to take those winter boots back out of the closet!

Pandora

I love Pandora. It's basically become my main source of background noise during the day. Does anyone else need background noise to work? I can't get anything done when it's totally quiet. I'm really not sure why, but I'm so much more easily distracted when all I listen to all day is my fingers hitting the keyboard. So I have this pretty amazing television in here, a stereo that plays everything (including my iPod), and what do I do when I get into the office? I queue up pandora.com aka the music genome project. Basically, you create your own station by just typing in the name of an artist that you like, and the program automatically mixes that artist's music with the music of other artists that have a similar sound. You can create as many of these mini stations as you want, and then you can merge some of them, or all of them, together and just have a giant mix to play all day. The catch? You can't repeat songs and you can only skip a certain number of songs per hour, because of the agreements Pandora has with the artists. But it's a great alternative to all of the commercials they play on the radio, and I've also found some music that I really like that I wouldn't have found without the service. Best of all? It's free. I think you can even get it to stream to your car or home radio, so you don't have to listen to it on your computer. That part might not be free, I haven't looked into it at all. Today's playlist? I'm thinking about mixing Fergie and Breaking Benjamin with a little Yo-Yo Ma. Eclectic, yes, but it breaks up the day :)

Spring Break

It's pretty slow here at Ticket King St. Paul today. Here's my theory on that: a lot of schools in Minnesota are on spring break this week and our customers are away from work/school and away from their computer and therefore don't have access to our inventory. I miss spring break. Looking back on it, I never really took full advantage of my time off, mostly because when you HAVE the time off you don't really think about it. But if I had a whole week to do anything that I wanted to, it would definitely be vacation time. Ticket King St. Paul would have to be closed for a whole week, though. So the Ticket King Spring Break would have to take place in a week when there are no events at the Xcel Energy Center. Speaking of which, we are officially in the last two weeks of regular season play for the Minnesota Wild - here are the links to their upcoming home games:

Friday, March 28th vs. the Vancouver Canucks

Sunday, March 30th vs. the Colorado Avalanche

Thursday, April 3rd vs. the Calgary Flames

This hockey season has gone faster that I expected. It still feels like we should be in the first half of the regular season! Other than that, there's not a whole heck of a lot coming up in St. Paul..however, for all of you Minnesota Twins fans out there, the home opener for the regular season is next Monday, the 31st of March (seems a little earlier than usual this year? maybe it's just me...) - which is your chance to go check out the hometown team back in action - and better yet, your hometown ticket broker (Ticket King, duh), still has quite a few seating options available for the game.

Just A Thought.

I love the fact that we at Ticket King are now open in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and that this offers our customers a much more convenient pick up option than our Hudson office offered, and also gives us the opportunity to meet a lot of our customers face-to-face. I had someone recently get a little, I guess upset would be the appropriate word here, with me because I didn't know who they were when they walked in the door, I actually had the audacity to ask for their ID before having them sign for their tickets. It turned out that this was the third time this particular customer had picked up tickets with us since October, and they did not think that it was very good customer service for me to...not be able to put a name with a face. Now, I do try very hard to know customers by name once they've been in here a few times. But I do talk to and see quite a few people on a daily basis. I guess my point is, when you come in here and talk to me, or any of the other Ticket King staff, it might take us a few visits to be able to put a name and a face together, but we do love meeting our customers, so it might take us a couple of tries, but if you come in here a few times to say hi we'll have it down pat. :)

WCHA Final Five: Championship

Tonight is the Championship game of the WCHA Final Five - and the Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey team is going to be in it! I can't belive that they made it this far - they've had such a bad season - but head coach Don Lucia has got to be just ecstatic! It just wouldn't be the Final Five if the Gophers weren't playing sometime on Saturday, so this is definitely a good thing. And you can definitely feel that people are excited about it around the Xcel Energy Center. Well, if you can catch the game at home, or even better, call me for tickets (651-281-8100) and go to the game tonight, make sure you're rooting for the maroon and gold!

WCHA Final Five

It's officially the start of one of my favorite hockey tournaments of the entire year: the WCHA Final Five!! The Minnesota Golden Gophers aren't predicted to do well, in fact they're playing tonight (Thursday), which is rare. But we've been busy worker bees all day here at Ticket King, both in our St. Paul and Minneapolis offices, and there is definitely a buzz around the Xcel Energy Center. There always is when the Gophers are playing here! I feel bad for the team, though, they've had a hard year. With Okposo leaving mid-season to turn pro, and the incident last weekend in Mankato, which ended with one of the Gopher players suffering a severe head injury, having to be airlifted to the Mayo Clinic and having emergency surgery. But best of luck to them tonight, I have to root for the home town team despite all the people from St. Cloud down here for the game. (My dad went to the U, so it's kind of a family tradition...) I'm sure I'll be updating as the tourney goes on, peace out!

St. Patrick's Day

Wowowowow. So I guess I really didn't realize the full...affect...St. Patrick's Day has on people. I mean, I knew it was kind of like a night to go out and party it up. In fact I went out down here on W. 7th Street Saturday night after the Minnesota Wild game with some of my friends. But I seriously never realized that people would take off of work today, Monday, the actual St. Patrick's Day, and be down here on W. 7th at 9 AM drinking. There's even a St. Patrick's Association in St. Paul. This town was definitely built by the Irish {and I'm not referencing anything that former governor Jesse Ventura may have implied on that topic, just a general acknowledgement of the Irish heritage of the city of St. Paul} Hah, just something I thought I'd share!

Minnesota Wild Game Day

Today begins another run of events for us down here by the Xcel Energy Center, which is great because it's always fun when people are down here and excited to support the local teams. Tonight the Minnesota Wild are taking on the New Jersey Devils at the Xcel Energy Center - and it always takes me by surprise when we play an Eastern Conference team, not because of the team but because of the ticket demand! Since we don't play the Eastern Conference teams at home as often as the Western Conference teams, and the style of play is so much more aggressive, we have a tendency to sell out of tickets quite a bit faster than we would for another game. Factor into that the fact that we have a very limited number of regular season games left anyway and you get people who are in quite a frenzy to go to the game tonight. I've only been to one game this year where we've played a team from the East Coast, that was the New York Rangers game back in December, when a friend of mine gave me a ticket front row right behind the Rangers bench - and of course it was a day when I forgot my camera! I took a few pictures on my phone, only one turned out very decently:

So Close To The Action!

I do have to say, however, that my favorite seats are about halfway up in the lower level, because you have such a better perspective of what's going on down on the ice. Anyway, if you're looking for tickets to the upcoming games, here's the link to our site:

Ticket King St. Paul

Quiet Behind The Storm

Wow, it is super quiet down here today! I can't believe it, after how busy it's been for the past few weeks for all of these high school tournaments! It should be a pretty low-key week here, well, for the first part of the week, anyway! We have so many events coming up:

3/13 Thursday Minnesota Wild vs. New Jersey Devils
3/14 Friday Minnesota Swarm vs. Chicago Shamrox
3/15 Saturday Minnesota Wild vs. Los Angeles Kings AND the city of St. Paul's annual St. Patrick's Day celebration
3/16 Sunday Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
3/17 Monday Minnesota Wild vs. Colorado Avalanche AND St. Patrick's Day!
3/18 Tuesday Bon Jovi (Concert #1)
3/19 Wednesday Bon Jovi (Concert #2)
3/20 Thursday WCHA Final Five Tournament - Game 1: Quarterfinal
3/21 Friday WCHA Final Five Tournament - Game Two: Semifinal
3/21 Friday WCHA Final Five Tournament - Game Three: Semifinal
3/22 Saturday WCHA Final Five Tournament - Game 4: 3rd Place
3/22 Saturday WCHA Final Five Tournament - Game 5: Championship

Now, we don't carry tickets to the Minnesota Swarm games, but other than that we have events for every day for about a week and a half - March is such a crazy month down here in St. Paul! Speaking of which, I should probably get back to work...

High School Hockey, Continued

Well, we are on day four, the final day of the MSHSL High School Hockey Tournament. It's crazy how busy it's been down here, and everyone is super excited for all of the games, even if their team didn't make it all the way to the end. I am happy to report that my favorite high school hockey team, St. Thomas Academy, won the state single 'A' tournament. And Edina has taken the double 'A' tourney by storm, I could not believe how many people were down here from Edina for the games, they really have a lot of school/team spirit not only within their school, but throughout their entire community! I happened to be passing by the Edina football team's car wash fundraiser by Southdale late last summer, and talked with some of the parents while the players were washing my car, and they really have a lot of dedication to not only being a great team, but also having a lot of fun doing what they do. I was impressed. I'm pretty sure they're the top seed for the AA tournament, but they're going to have quite a bit of competition from underdog school Hill-Murray. Anyway, as much as I love this MSHSL high school hockey tournament, I do have to say that I'm ready for it to be done. Congrats to all the players who participated!

High School Hockey Tournament

The MSHSL Boys' Hockey Tournament starts today. It's still mostly preliminary games, but you can feel how excited hockey fans in the state of hockey are for the games that will be taking place over the next few days. It's amazing to me how people gather here from all around the state, even if their own team didn't make it this far into the season, just to celebrate the sport of hockey and the end of the high school hockey season. For some of my friends, this weekend is better than Christmas. Four days of non-stop hockey at the Xcel Energy Center and Mariucci Arena capped off with a Minnesota Wild game on Sunday afternoon. Bliss. There are definitely a lot of high school kids that will be running around the streets of downtown St. Paul for the rest of the week. Them and their shenanigans, which I say at the risk of sounding like I am a bazillion years old. But for this one tournament, it doesn't bother me. I'll avoid Cossetta's at all costs, and probably be caffeinated beyond belief between the highly copious Starbucks and diet coke {The busier we are, the more I caffeinate}, but the buzz that gently humms around the Xcel Energy Center just kind of puts a perma-smile on my face. I'll write more about the tournament as it progresses. Peace out homeslice.

Weekend Game

It's Sunday, and there is a Minnesota Wild NHL hockey game tonight at the Xcel Energy Center. And we are heading into the last month of the regular season of the NHL, so it's cRaZy busy down here at Ticket King St. Paul. Sunday games are great, I think, because there are so many kids that get to go - and when little hockey players get to go see the big guys in action, they get super excited, and it's absolutely adorable. There was a little guy, probably around five years old, in here earlier this afternoon. He came in with his dad, wearing a Marian Gaborik jersey, and I asked him about his jersey, and he came straight out and told me that it was a Gabby jersey and that Gaborik had even signed it! I find it so amazing when little kids get really into a sport, you can tell how much they really love the game, and it makes me smile to see these kids going to see their heroes at the Xcel Energy Center!

Ticket King Customers

At Ticket King we have a lot of satisfied customers and a while back we ran a promotion that if you sent us your experience via email and we used it on our website, we would send you a special happy customer coupon to use on your next purchase.


Here are some of the winners of the contest!