Der Miracle on Ice

The Koreans seemed to be recruiting fans at the train station, as they were giving out free t-shirts just outside the tram platform to the stadium. My friend Greg Lee, he being of Korean heritage, will be getting mine.


We took a tram to the game and talked with an American from Miami, who was having a hard time finding any place to watch the NBA Finals, and a native of Frankfurt who we dubbed "German Mike Eruzione," because of his loose resemblance to the captain of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. GME was in his early 20s and a lifelong resident of Frankfurt, and he discussed how exciting it was to have the World Cup in his hometown and see fans from all over the world come to Germany.

The guy from Miami and GME started talking about the World Cup policy on tickets, as both were trying to get scalper tickets for today's game. Each World Cup ticket has the holder's name printed on it, and if you want to legally exchange them with someone, you're suppose to pay a fee and fill out paperwork with FIFA. It's pretty well known, however, that ticket takers rarely, if ever, check the names, although we were told spot checks do occur. GME had a tip for the Miami guy on how to beat the system, which he was at first reluctant to disclose.

GME: "If you get checked, you just say, 'I work for World Cup sponsor and I just got these tickets from colleague yesterday."
MG: "Oh, right. We work for Yahoo!"
GME: "You work for Yahoo?"
MG: "No."
GME: "Us neither!" (laughter)

I hope that story was as funny as it was in person. Probably not.