Free Fenway Park Ice Skating Event Inflitrated by Scalpers
Photo Credit: New York Times, In Transit Blog
Fenway Park is one of the most historical professional sports stadiums in the country. It is the oldest baseball stadium and has been the home of many memories (and heart breakers) going back to Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, Roger Clemens, and so on and so on.
This year, one more memory will embed itself in the old ball yard as the NHL will host the Winter Classic there, pitting the Boston Bruins against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Before the puck is dropped however, some lucky Boston residents are getting the opportunity skate on the diamond as guests of the city. However, like other major sporting events, scalpers have gotten their greedy hands on some of these "free" tickets, that are now being sold for thousands of dollars. The city has taken notice and is on the case.
“We’re going to have checkers for people coming in with the tickets,’’ Mayor Thomas M. Menino told the Boston Globe in an interview. “I want to make sure that for those individuals who want to beat the system, we beat them before they get into the park.’’
Boston police will also be patrolling for scalpers outside the park on the two Sundays of skating, Jan. 3 and Jan. 10, and are monitoring websites such as Craigslist and eBay for ticket sales, police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll told the Globe.
The mayor told the Globe that he is furious with “greedy’’ scalpers for selling nontransferable tickets slated solely for Bostonians.
“It’s outrageous,’’ he told the Globe. “This was done for the right reasons, to give someone who can’t afford to go to the hockey games the opportunity to skate in Fenway Park. Now people are using it for their own personal gains. It’s very, very sad.’’
On Saturday morning, thousands of residents lined up at 16 community centers for more than 3,000 tickets. The Globe reported that about 1,000 were turned away and placed on a waiting list.
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