When I was given this chance to go ahead and plan a trip to Europe for the hockey games the first natural reaction was to jump for joy and celebrate in my car alone. After that was all through (or I let it subside a little bit) I realized I would have to find tickets to get to these games or else this was really all for not.

Shockingly (not) the games were both almost all sold out through the traditional channels of ticket purchase. I don’t have contacts with the Oilers to help me out (I have heard multiple people complimenting their season seat reps for going above and beyond to help them, that’s the good kind of people that the Oilers don’t have enough of) getting these tickets so I had to use the off-brand websites.

Full disclosure, I still have a lot of anxiety built up just thinking about the validity of these tickets but here is the fun that I went through and what you can all reference when I inevitably am left standing outside of one of the venues in Europe.

So, I am travelling to Germany with two of my friends so for this one I was going to need three tickets at least. Around this time, there was also talk of more people joining us so I was looking for four tickets together. The Cologne Sharks website still did have some tickets available for the game in and around the €228 Euros ($350 CAD). So I ventured over to a website call Viagogo and got to searching. I found tickets in a slightly better section (to my untrained eye) in Section 601 for €540.06 ($819.85 CAD) for all four tickets. Not a bad little price (if only for the cost of resale tickets now) for tickets. But then I started doing some digging on Viagogo and their track record as after I had purchased the tickets I was informed the tickets could be sent up and until three days before the event.

More on that later.

Right after I got through with the game where I would need a grouping of tickets I then proceeded to the big game. The regular season match between the Oil and Devils. This one was all sold out except for some tickets called “obstructed view only” (These tickets are still available which makes me think the locals know something that we don’t). These tickets ran only about $80.00 Canadian but I was hesitant for the fear of having to watch the game through the windows of a Skoda auto car or something.

I ventured back to Viagogo and found some more tickets available. This is where I am sure I am going to be sitting outside of the arena watching via the wifi. My now purchased seats are in the front row of the upper bowl on the side the Oilers attack twice, but they were 17750.00 Russian rubles. That translates into about $350 Canadian but the anxiety I feel is high. Why? Because they were a digital copy of the tickets sent to me via email. For that reason and well my excitement alone, I will find myself at the front doors the minute they let people line up so I’m not the one caught holding Vlad’s tickets he printed off 400 times and sold to every Canadian sucker named Nation Dan.

I was super excited to see that the Oilers and Devils agreed to open their practices on the Friday before the big game in Sweden. Luckily I was doing some research for this very article when I stumbled upon Ticketmaster and that they are of course opening the doors for the practice, but will be charging you to walk through them. Just a PSA for anyone headed over with me. This is something to watch for.

So, here I sit with four printed off tickets (of which we only need three), a PDF copy (1 of 400) of Vlad’s tickets from Russia with Love and an official pdf of practice tickets. Going to Germany and Sweden knowing I will for sure only get into two of three venues ain’t bad, right?

Got your own buying online horror stories? Post them below and let’s all laugh nervously together.