Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Tickets Tip #5: Canada Day Sale

Now's the time to buy your Pan Am tickets if you've been procrastinating or are wanting to buy more.

CIBC is offering 25% discount on all remaining tickets from 10am Wednesday July 1st to 9pm Thursday July 2nd. Use the code CIBCPANAM.

Also Swimming Canada have been offering 20% off some swimming tickets (mostly more expensive ones).
Click here for more information and to buy tickets. Use discount code SWIM20. 

Here's a sneak preview for tomorrow's Ticket Tip:

The media may be trying to share the message that the Pan Am Games aren't popular and that ticket sales are lagging, but I will argue that there are tickets that I would buy but the events are now sold out. 
I thought that I would buy more tickets once I learned when Canadians were competing, but looking at tickets for various sports, a LOT MORE than I imagined are already sold.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Tickets Tip #4: Diving - going, going...gone.

If you're interested in seeing diving, you better hurry and get tickets. Most sessions are sold out, so these tickets are for die-hard diving fans who don't want to miss out. They're not the best quality so may be disappointing for others.

The only medal event with very few tickets left (and not great quality ones) is:

Monday July 13th 1pm
Click here for tickets.
Women 10m Synchro final (Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion)
Men 3m Synchro final (Philippe Gagné and François Imbeau-Dulac)

Canada is almost guaranteed a podium in this session and most probably gold in the Women 10m so that is a bonus for this session.

If you want to see diving with better quality tickets, the first day of preliminaries is still available (note: session is the same day as the Opening Ceremony).

Friday July 10th 10am
Click here for tickets
Men 3m Preliminaries (Philippe Gagné, François Imbeau-Dulac)
Friday July 10th 1:30pm 
Click here for tickets.
Women 10m Preliminaries (Meaghan Benfeito, Roseline Filion)

Diving is being held at the CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Am Aquatics Centre & Field House at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus. Click here for more detail on the venue and transportation options.

I am happy to have gone to see the Winter Nationals at this venue. You can read my blog post here.

Just to give you an idea of the views, I took these photos from above section E303. The first shows the seats in the W sections (available tickets for the synchro on Monday are limited to the far left section whereas the diving is on the far right).


The second photo is a good representation of the view for available tickets in section E303. The divers in this photo are on the 1m boards which are not in use for the Pan Am Games. The 3m Springboards are on the left of the (tallest) 10m tower.


Perhaps I was spoiled having such a great view at Winter Nationals watching from the far right and aligned with the divers that I'm not overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the tickets left. If you've never seen diving, perhaps anywhere in this venue would still be amazing. If you think of an event at Air Canada Centre or Rogers Centre, we're so far from the action but it's still wonderful. The important thing is to be present and in this case hopefully hear O Canada.

Go Canada Go!

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Tickets Tip #3: Rugby Sevens

Two weeks from today, the Rugby Sevens medals will be decided.



There aren't many tickets left for the medal rounds but this is a great ticket to have in hand with the bronze and gold medal games for both the men and the women being contested.

July 12 4pm (RU004). Click here for tickets.
Women's Classification Match
Women's Bronze Medal
Women's Gold Medal
Men's Classification Match
Men's Classification Match
Men's Semifinal Match
Men's Semifinal Match
Men's Classification Match
Men's Classification Match
Men's Bronze Medal Match
Men's Gold Medal Match

Click here for the full schedule.

Any rugby sevens ticket ensures you see the women's and men's Team Canada compete.

Saturday July 11 10am (RU001)
Women's Canada vs Columbia
4 other women's matches
Women's Canada vs Mexico
3 men's matches
Men's Canada vs Guyana

Saturday July 11 4pm (RU002)
Women's Canada vs Brazil
2 other women's matches
Men's Canada vs Brazil
Men's Canada vs Argentina
6 other men's matches

Sunday July 12 10am (RU003)
Canada vs Argentina
Canada vs USA
4 more women's matches
Men's 4 - Quarterfinal matches



Saturday, June 27, 2015

Pan Am Events to See #2: Indoor Volleyball

Yesterday, I recommended athletics sessions to see at the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am Games. You can see that post here.

Today, I recommend indoor volleyball.


Watch our men's team take on Argentina on television tonight (Sportsnet ONE 8:30pm) and then buy your tickets to see this amazing team live in Toronto.

To ensure you see Canada play, here is the schedule of the preliminary games. Tickets are $20-$30 (plus fees).

Men's Schedule:
Friday July 17 (VO004). Buy tickets here.
7pm Canada vs Mexico
9pm Argentina vs Cuba

Sunday July 19 (VO008). Buy tickets here.
1:30pm Brazil vs Cuba
3:30pm Canada vs Puerto Rico

Tuesday July 21 (VO012). Buy tickets here.
7pm Canada vs USA
9pm Cuba vs Columbia


Women's Schedule:
Thursday July 16 (VO002). Buy tickets here.
7pm Canada vs Dominican Republic
9pm USA vs Peru

Saturday July 18 (VO006). Buy tickets here.
7pm Canada vs Cuba
9pm USA vs Puerto Rico

Monday July 20 (VO009). Buy tickets here.
1:30pm Canada vs Argentina
3:30pm Dominican Republic vs Cuba

Click here to see the full schedule (including second round and medal games) and click here to buy tickets to other games. There are not many tickets left for the medal games ($35-$45 plus fees) so I wouldn't suggest waiting to see if Team Canada makes it.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Do you have your tickets for the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am Games? 2 weeks to Go!

With just two weeks to go to the Pan Am Games, do you have your tickets? Mayor John Tory said this week:
“People procrastinate on this because they’re not sure of exactly what they want to go and see or when they can go and see it. In my case it is more of a scheduling issue.” 
I can completely understand his comment.

The Pan Am Games are part of my passion so I have made the time to do the research. I have spent hours looking over the schedule, who is competing, when they're competing and which individuals have made the TORONTO 2015 team and comparing it to my calendar. I still don't have all the tickets that I will end up with but am very excited that the tickets I did buy have come in the mail during the past couple of weeks.



I can appreciate people who would love to go, but just don't have the time to research. The task can be daunting. For that reason, I will post my picks of tickets to get during the next few weeks. I will make my picks as specific as possible - meaning, I won't just name the sport but I will say the date and time of the session to make ticket buying easier.

Follow me to see my daily recommendations:
Twitter (@olympichearts and @ohcanadasports)
Facebook.com/ohcanadasports
www.ohcanadasports.com/olympichearts
www.ohcanadasports.com/panam

Don't have time to read this post? Scroll down to the end to see today's picks.

I wrote two blog posts last fall about how I decided which tickets to initially get. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

I currently have tickets to 7 events. During the initial lottery process, I chose the Opening Ceremony, the Closing Ceremony, the trampoline medal session and the men's triathlon.

Once detailed schedules were released, I added two athletics sessions and men's basketball.

I chose the men's and women's 100m races session (semis and finals) on Wednesday evening (includes men's long jump, decathlon, women's shot put, women's 400m hurdles, women's 800m and men's hammer) as well as the men's and women's 4x100m and 4x400m session on Saturday evening July 25th. This also includes the final events of the heptathlon, women's 1500m, men's high jump, women's javelin and men's 5000m.

I am more than excited at the list of athletics athletes I'm going to see including Damian Warner, Jessica Zelinka, Derek Drouin, Cam Levins, Melissa Bishop, Jessica Smith, Sarah Wells, Elizabeth Gleadle, as well as our many sprinters.

I look forward to seeing who will represent Canada this summer on our men's basketball team as the announcement hasn't been made yet.

The events I chose seem to be popular choices. The Opening Ceremony, trampoline, triathlon, basketball and the relay athletics session are currently sold out.

Today's picks involve athletics because I believe these will sell quicker than some other recommendations that will follow in the next few weeks.

Eight Canadian athletes have broken Canadian athletics records in 2015:

  • Shawn Barber - pole vault
  • Andre De Grasse - 200m (competing in 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay)
  • Cam Levins - 10000m (competing in the 5000m at the Pan Am Games)
  • Elizabeth Gleadle - javelin
  • Christabel Nettey - long jump
  • Natasha Wodak - 10000m
  • Brianne Theisen-Eaton (heptathlon - although competing in long jump and 4x400m relay at the Pan Am Games not the heptathlon)

The two sessions I recommend in particular involve the 100m and decathlon events (if you can get your hands on tickets for the sold out relay session on Saturday night, I highly recommend that too).

Andre De Grasse is in the media a lot recently after winning the NCAA titles in the 100m and the 200m races with (wind-aided) times of 9.75 and 19.58 respectively. He is the first Canadian to run under 10 seconds since Bruny Surin in 1999. Gavin Smellie will also be running the 100m. He was part of the London 2012 Olympic relay team and won the bronze in the relay at the 2013 World Championships.

Damian Warner is the World bronze medallist in the decathlon. It is very likely that he will be on the podium at the TORONTO 2015 Games if not on top of the podium.

There aren't many tickets left for this session (in the corner of the 3rd leg of the 100m relay - but still worth it).

Wednesday July 22 6pm (AT006) featuring 8 Canadian Olympians. 
Click here for tickets.
(Please double check ticket link to ensure you are directed to the correct session)
Men Long Jump Final (Jharyl Bowry, Stevens Dorcelus)
Men High Jump Decathlon (Olympian Damian Warner, Patrick Arbour)
Women 100m Semi-Finals (Khamica Bingham, Olympian Crystal Emmanuel)
Women Shot Put Final (Taryn Suttie, Olympian Julie Labonté)
Men 100m Semi-Finals (Andre De Grasse, Olympian Gavin Smellie)
Women 400m Hurdles Final (Sage Watson, Olympian Sarah Wells)
Women 800m Final (Olympian Melissa Bishop, Olympian Jessica Smith)
Men 400m Decathlon (Olympian Damian Warner, Patrick Arbour)
Men Hammer Final (Olympian Jim Steacy and Daniel Novia)
Women 100m Final  (Khamica Bingham, Olympian Crystal Emmanuel)
Men 100m Final  (Andre De Grasse, Olympian Gavin Smellie)

There are more tickets available for the following evening that includes the last two events of the decathlon and a chance to hear O Canada with Damian Warner at the top of the podium.

Thursday July 23 5:30pm (AT008). Click here for tickets.
(Please double check ticket link to ensure you are directed to the correct session)
Men Javelin Decathlon (Olympian Damian Warner, Patrick Arbour)
Men 400m Hurdles Final (Tait Nystuen, Gregory MacNeill)
Women 200m Semi-Finals (Kimberley Hyacinthe, Raquel Tjernagel)
Women Pole Vault Final (Kelsie Ahbe, Olympian Mélanie Blouin)
Men 200m Semi-Finals (Andre De Grasse, Brendon Rodney)
Men 800m Final (Brandon McBride, Anthony Romaniw)
Men Discus Final (Olympian Tim Nedow, Marc-Antoine Lafrenaye-Dugas)
Women 400m Final (Audrey Jean-Baptiste, Taylor Sharpe)
Men 400m Final  (Philip Osei, Daniel Harper)
Women 10000m Final (Natasha Wodak, Lanni Marchant)
Men 1500m Decathlon (Olympian Damian Warner, Patrick Arbour)