Ice hockey: Eisbären Berlin vs. Hamburg Freezers

The local Deutsche Eishockey Liga club, Eisbären Berlin, have their home opener Sunday, September 16th. This is supposed to be their last season in their old rink before moving to the new O2 World. The game starts at 18:30, and the arena can be reached by taking the M5 tram from Alexanderplatz (or Hackescher Markt) to Sandinostraße.

Is anybody interested in catching a little live ice hockey? I propose we meet at Alex and take the tram out together, and get tickets in the Stehplatz (15 €, no extra charge for singing and chanting). Since it takes 20 minutes to get out there, and it's a good idea to claim a good standing spot far in advance, I propose we meet at around 17:00 between the Fernsehturm and S/DB Alexanderplatz.

I was just about to suggest the exact same thing - well a little less organised of course

Bump. Anybody besides me and "Sandy" interested? What about all you Canadians?

I could handle some ice hockey. Sign me up.

Hmm, so if Brunch really is in F'hain as proposed elsewhere, perhaps we want to go straight to the rink from there rather than returning to Alex. The downside is 1) there will probably still be a couple of hours to kill and 2) I'd have to go to brunch in my hockey jersey.

Thoughts?

JTW, GG n I are actually going to get seats we can't be bothered standing and also not sure yet but Jedi might come along with her children, so standing for us probably isn't a good idea anyway - so not sure what you guys want to do? Did you want to group with us or do your own thing.

How tricky is it to get seats?

if I was in Berlin, I'd love to come along to this game... who owns Berlin & Hamburg nowadays? still anschutz?

sorry Lodge I need to clarify that the comment was directed JTW and who ever is going with him - so at the moment it is just me, GG, LLU and possibly Jedi buying seats - not sure how easy they are to get you can buy them on line.

Well, all else being equal I find standing to be more fun (not to mention cheaper). But sitting with friends is more fun than standing alone. Sitting also means less organizing on the day, but more preparation in advance to get seats together. It also has the advantage that the sitting sections are closer to the center of the ice (since this rink has standing sections at the occupied end and in the corners, and sitting in between). Note that it's a small arena, so the higher the seats, the better the view is likely to be.

If you're willing to organize seats, count me in. Niall?

Yup. Absolutely.

An update on the plans. We now plan to have a sitting party (who will buy tickets ahead of time) and a standing party (who will turn up early at the rink and buy tickets then). This way people who want to decide on the spur of the moment (or not pay as much for tickets) can still join Njáll and me in the Stehplatz. The easiest way to get in on this action is to join in the brunch plans and hang around F'hain with us. Otherwise, I figure we'll be turning up at the arena between 17:00 and 17:30, so you can PM one of us a Handy number to coördinate things.

Okay, let's try that again? Next home games:

23.09.2007 14:30 Eisbären Berlin - Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg
28.09.2007 19:30 Eisbären Berlin - EV Duisburg "Die Füchse"

23.09 is next Sunday and 28.09 is a week from Friday. If we do the Sunday afternoon game, we should move brunch up an hour or two, especially if some of us get Stehplatz and want to be at the rink an hour early.

Next sunday afternoon looks like a winner - we could always have an early ice-hockey-ists brunch or something.

E.g., Weißwurst at Brauhaus Mitte at 11:00 or 11:30? (The latter cutting it a bit close on the traditional noon cutoff.)

Done. Fellow ice-hockey-ists, sign up here.

we should book tickets, then? Yet again I find my geographical location sub-optimal for actually getting tickets. Internizzle?

Or I could go down and do it at Hekticket. It adds few euros to the cost of each ticket either way, and I'm not sure about getting student-discounted tickets that way. We could also hope that the second game will not sell out an hour before faceoff.

Anyway, we should check in with the Sitzplatz crowd first. Tammy, you're not around this weekend, right? Is there a Sitzplatz group this time?

we are going the following week

I.e., 28.09?

I propose we (I, Njáll, Leah et al) make 23.09 a Stehplatz excursion in that case.