SOLD OUT

The first playoff game since 2001 in Dolphins Stadium is SOLD OUT.  Tickets when on sale early Monday morning and by 10AM most of the tickets were gone.  Lines formed at Dolphins Stadium where fans eager to cheer on their team stood in Dolphins gear and according to a report, one woman bought 90 tickets…can you say Ebay?

Sure you can still get tickets to this game.  The Sun-Sentinel has a few for sale…seriously.  

Ebay and Craiglist has a few for sale…I would link to them but they are scalping at 100 to a 1000 dollars depending on the seating.  To miss this makes me wonder one thing.  Will the stadium be full?

What if fans decide, I’m not going to the game now I can watch it at home rather than spend the money to buy off Ebay and such?  Do you think the sellers of those tickets will take say 9 of their friends to the game to use them?  Not likely, in fact, would it surprise you at all if the owners of those tickets followed football at all?  It wouldn’t me.

This is the biggest game since 2001 and in most respects it’s larger because of the turnaround from last year.  Fans are hungry and starved for a winner and you don’t have to look very far to see the difference from last year to this one in terms of fan support.

Last season I attended the Oakland game and midway through the 2nd quarter I found myself pacing up and down the front row aisle trying to get the natives rowdy for a defensive stop.  Here and there a few fans got to their feet, but in most cases I was told to go “sit down” and “shut up”.  Looks of disdain from so called fans who likely took in the game because it was “A” free or “B” because it gave them something to bitch about.

The first few home games this year were not immediate sell-outs and local news stations were buying tickets to get the games televised locally…to be honest, I don’t know if those early games were, televised that is.

In November I attended the Seattle Seahawks game.  We had just beaten Denver the week before, spirits and moods were much higher.  The team was 4-4 and something was different in Dolphins Stadium.  It was loud. There were seats above that were barren orange, desolate patches in the corners of the end-zones on the upper deck.  A splattering of empties throughout the stadium…but…it was loud.

Fans cheered and from my field seat at times it was almost deafening.  In front of me I watched as the Seahawks drove the field only to face a false start by our own goal line.  It was the fans.  The fans were coming back.

By the time we faced NE we had a sell out.  One of those “sell outs” by the numbers but if you looked at the stadium there was still empty seats here and there, patches along the upper bowl.  A return home for SF and that all had changed.  This weekend will likely be different.  Maybe some empty seats from tickets not sold on Ebay.  Maybe a few scalpers in the parking lot don’t get their prices…but this stadium should be the loudest it’s been in 7 years.

Going to the game from out of town?  Want to buy some new gear for the game to show off?  Well, your not likely to find it in Miami.  Shirts, jerseys, hats, all sold out.  Retailers say there is some on order, back-order.  They say there will be another shipment…how long will that last?  How long has it been since you had to worry about “IF” you would get a hat?

In November I bought a sideline hat for 10 bucks.  It was 75 percent off the regular price.  Think I would get that deal now?  Not likely.  And you know what?  It sure makes you smile.  Plop down 30 buck for a ball cap and you grin because you got it.  Sunday night I jumped online and ordered my grey “AFC East Division Champion” hat from MiamiDolphins.com it was on back-order.  

The Ravens will come to a different Dolphins Stadium this weekend.  Not the quiet serene open air vacation spot they visited earlier in the season.  The Dolphins got manhandled in that game and beaten by a rookie head coach with a rookie quarterback.  They were not ready to play and they got beat on the field badly although the score really didn’t show it.  Still, it was a 44 yard Terrel Suggs interception that really changed the make-up of the game, it was tied 3-3 at that point.

Whatever happens in this game, the Phin are not likely going to lay down.  They still feel they are not getting the respect they feel they deserve and with all the talk surrounding the Coach of the Year nominations, many still point to John Harbaugh and Mike Smith as the leading candidates.  Something this team is not looking fondly upon.

Baltimore vs. Miami.  There is still work to be done…and they know it!