Today, thousands of students who submitted an application for Gopher hockey tickets find out their weekend fate for the rest of the hockey season. But this year, a new ticket policy is in place and questions for applicants will not be, âÄúDid I get tickets or not?âÄù but âÄúDo I have to go to games alone?âÄù The new approach for ticket distribution could be a disappointing one. For most students, hockey games are a social event âÄî an aspect the University didnâÄôt seem to consider when they drafted the new policy that eliminated group applications to the student ticket lottery. âÄúNow everyone as an individual gets the same (chance),âÄù in the lottery, Assistant Athletics Director for Marketing and Ticket Sales Jason LaFrenz told The Minnesota Daily on Monday. Groups, he said, and students under the impression that larger groups had a better chance at tickets, put the previous system in disarray. This means students who applied in groups can divide the allotted amount of tickets amongst themselves. While the practice seems reasonable for larger groups, small groups of threes and fours could end up slighted. Previously, the lottery gave students a simple approach to hockey tickets âÄî either you got them or you didnâÄôt. But new this year is the general admission policy, meaning seats are first-come first-serve in the student sections, thus eliminating the unsatisfactory standing-room-only season tickets that were formerly doled out at the same cost. The only drawback to eliminating standing-room-only tickets is that students will have to arrive earlier for seats. While the new policy attempts to bring students into the stands faster and keep them packed, it may flop on the athletics department. What happens, for example, if your group was only two or three people, and you only got one ticket? The athletics department appears to be seeking alternatives to an often-erratic lottery system. But if their goal is to increase rowdiness and spirit in the stands, it should have let students apply for tickets in their full groups.