Fifty Fifty

Apologies for the lack of blogs recently. I tend to find that January is a time of planning the year’s adventures rather than actually partaking in any so it’s been hard to find something worth blogging about. We have had a General Election and Brexit since my last blog but I doubt you want to hear my opinions on both of those when you have access to so much well informed debate and reasoned discussion through social media. Politician X is a c***. F*** Politician Y. Politician Z is an f***ing c***. All classy stuff of which I’m not going to add to here. You are far more interested in where I go on my holidays, my embarrassing ailments and of course my brief dalliance with swimming in the nuddy.

For my first blog of 2020 I’m visiting the subject of good fortune. As you know, I like Ice Hockey. A tradition at professional hockey games is a thing called the Fifty Fifty. This is basically a raffle. You buy a ticket for, say, a pound. Other people also buy a ticket and by the beginning of the third period the total number of tickets sold is tallied up. One ticket stub is then drawn at random and the owner of the ticket to which it was formerly attached wins a cash prize consisting of exactly half the amount of money collected. The other half is then used to bolster the hockey club’s finances, usually on the premise of assisting junior development. It is quite a simple premise. The more tickets that get sold, the bigger the prize and of course the less chance you have of winning it. I was recently at an NHL game in Vancouver where the ticket sales were constantly updated on the big screen. The last I saw it appeared that nearly C$120,000 had been spent on 50/50 tickets meaning some lucky chap was going to leave the game C$60,000 richer. The Rogers Arena has a capacity of over 18,000 and those sales suggest each person present bought an average of C$15 worth of 50/50 tickets, approximately £9. Of course not everyone buys them so some fans must make a major investment in an attempt to win the prize. Add in some overpriced arena food and drink, and a seat which will have cost anywhere between £50 and £250 and hockey night in Canada isn’t exactly for those a bit short of cash.

I digress. I watch my hockey in Glasgow where the Glasgow, formerly Braehead, Clan have been playing for the past ten seasons. They have had a 50/50 draw if not from their inception, for as long as I can remember. Prizes were initially a couple of hundred pounds but as the club became more popular and the new fanbase caught on to the tradition the prize totals crept up. For a number of seasons I bought a ticket or maybe two. By the 2015-16 season I was generally buying five a game. I must add here that I’m not a gambler. I’ve bet on a horse just a couple of times in my life and I’m £10 worse off than I would have been had I not stepped inside a betting shop. That still irks. Gambling has zero appeal to me. Entering a lottery which aims to raise money for good causes is different, however. It is a form of charity and yes, there is a small chance you might win something worthwhile but you justify it knowing that the money you’ve spent is going to be put to good use. Such was my reasoning for buying 50/50 tickets at the hockey, even if the real beneficiary was not a charity but a commercially run sports club that still has no trophies to its name. I never won of course. I never really expected to. I did check the number whenever the winning ticket was announced midway through the third period but the closest I got was when that number was just two away from mine. Had I only been one person ahead in the queue to buy the ticket it would have been me. Hey-ho. Eventually I stopped buying the 50/50 tickets. I think we were having a particularly bad season and felt less inclined to part with any more money than was strictly speaking necessary.

I was at a hockey game the other night. This was different. It was a testimonial game for a player, Matt Haywood, who joined the club when it was formed in 2010 at the age of 19. The fact he is still there is quite remarkable for the sport of ice hockey. Such loyalty and service were deemed, rightly in my opinion, to be worthy of a testimonial year and one of the events was this game which featured the current Clan team take on one made up of ex-Clan players. I paid for my seat some months ago and turned up for the evening’s activities along with nearly 3,000 others. This was a good turnout on a Tuesday evening in February. The ‘game’ consisted of two periods of not at all serious hockey separated by a skills challenge period. At the end of the first period I took a stroll into the concourse and had a look at the merchandise. On the way back into the arena I decided that as it was a testimonial game I’d invest in some 50/50 tickets. It was a good cause after all. I had a fiver in my wallet so bought five, plonking them in my pocket and basically forgetting about them for the next hour or two. Midway through the third period the announcer informed the crowd to get their tickets ready as the draw had been made. Normally he would inform us of the total prize money but he did not have that information to hand on this occasion. I dug the tickets out of my pocket.

“The winning ticket is number one, four, one…”. Good start I thought.

“Zero, nine…”. Blimey, I’m still in the game.

“Five…”. Ooer!

“Five”. I looked at my top ticket. 1410953. I hope they are in sequence! Next ticket: 1410954. Looking promising. Next ticket: 1410955. Ya dancer! (Glasgow rubs off on you sometimes). But hang on. Was that the number he said? I turned to a group of ladies sat behind me.

“Did he say one four one zero nine five five?”, I asked.

“Not sure”, they said. Eventually we sort of agreed that the number announced was the same as the third ticket in my pile and that I was indeed the winner of what at the time was a mystery prize total. After a celebratory fist pump with the ladies I headed out of the arena to the concourse to claim the prize. I must add here that in a normal game this is one thing that puts me off the 50/50 draw. If I ever managed to win it I may well receive a significant amount of cash but I’d miss what could be an exciting end to the game. This game, however, was not a serious affair as witnessed by the final score, 19-17 to the ex-Clansmen, so walking out before its conclusion was no great hardship. At the desk in the foyer I stated my claim. The two volunteer ladies who run the draw at every Clan game were still tallying up the takings. Tracy, who works for the Clan and I know of old, was also on hand and wrote the winning amount on a big presentation cheque that has been doing the job for many seasons. The total takings for the 50/50 draw was £2,940. The prize money, as written on the cheque, was £1,470. That is not the end of it of course. There is an official presentation at the end of the game. Before I was led down to the ice, however, I was handed an envelope. It took me a bit by surprise. It contained my winnings in £10 and £20 notes. I hadn’t really given any thought to how I’d receive the money. Armed with an envelope of banknotes and a large imitation cheque I headed into the bowels of the arena. Almost as soon as the game ended I was gesticulated onto the ice where there was rubber matting laid out to reduce the chance of slipping. Kevin the announcer, who I also know of old, informed the fans that the winner of the 50/50 was Neil Hughes and I marched out with the big cheque to monumental applause. Well, maybe a ripple of polite applause. And not an insignificant amount of apathy. I got my photo taken with the cheque and a couple of pretty girls and wandered back to the area behind the players’ benches. I hung around to watch further presentations and the speech by Matt Haywood and that was that. The cheque was left ready for the name of next Saturday’s winner to take the place of mine, I said goodbye to Tracy and headed out into the departing crowds. I did nip back to the mech desk though and bought a tee shirt. I thought it was the least I could do.

I drove home delighted with my good fortune yet with a slight sense of unease. Did I deserve to win? Yes, it’s a game of chance but there are many people who buy 50/50 tickets religiously every game. Surely they are more deserving than me? For some of those £1,470 would make a big difference to their lives, maybe buy them a well deserved holiday, a much needed new washing machine or perhaps enable them to renew their season tickets for next year. I eventually came round though and thought ah well, it’s a game of chance, ‘deserve’ doesn’t really enter into it. I was there ten years ago when Matt Haywood started his Clan career after all. The next question is just what to spend it on. Elaine said that we could use it to pay for some work we are having done in the garage. Well yes, but the truth is we would be paying for that anyway. This money should be spent on something above and beyond. The banknotes were deposited in the bank the following day. There the money will remain until I decide how it should be used. Come to think of it, our telly is 13 years old and perhaps it’s time for a new one…