Precious tickets are gone: After two days of trying, some are lucky, most are not

James Paton, Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

World Series tickets for all three games at Coors Field sold out in less than three hours today.

The Rockies announced about 2:45 that all 54,000 tickets were gone.

Some lucky fans emerged with tickets after a slow start at noon today, but most people walked away from their computers frustrated and empty-handed.

"We know many people will be disappointed, and we do feel for them," spokesman Jay Alves said in a news conference.

The Rockies blame an "external and malicious" attack for Monday's ticket sales crash. The club said its Web site dealt with more than 8.5 million hits in 90 minutes, and only 500 tickets were sold.

Denver police and FBI officials said today they have received no complaint or request for investigation regarding the alleged cyber hacking.

"No formal complaint has been filed," said Denver FBI Special Agent Rene Vonder Haar, adding that her agency had yet to receive any information regarding a cyber-attack.

The sale today was slow. But the tickets, which went on sale at noon, finally sold out before 3 p.m.

The successful fans included Mark Abney. The 43-year-old Thornton resident and IT specialist said the process took him only 15 minutes, start to finish.

"I got 'em," said Abney, whose office in Denver overlooks Coors Field. "I tried yesterday and I wasn't going to worry about it today. I'm feeling now that I need to go buy a Powerball ticket."

At Spire Financial, on 15th Street in Denver, none of the employees nailed down tickets. But a worker in the company's Phoenix office reported scoring tickets.

On Monday, Joe Poxson wore a Matt Holliday jersey and had two laptops going at his office in the Denver Tech Center. He had no luck getting tickets.

Today was a whole new ball game.

The project manager for Denver-based IQNavigator was in California working out of his client's office. His lucky shirt today: a purple oxford.

About an hour after tickets went on sale, Poxson had a confirmation for two tickets to Sunday's game.

"I tried to get as close as possible the servers as I could," Poxson joked about being in California.

Janice Armstrong rode a roller coaster of emotions during her bid for tickets.

The 28-year-old logged onto the Rockies Web site at four computers at Select Physical Therapy in Lakewood, where she works as a patient service specialist.

At about 12:15 p.m., she made it to the purchasing page on one computer.

She picked four tickets and then the screen went blank for a few minutes.

She got to the page where she entered her e-mail address and password created over the weekend when she preregistered. Then the screen went blank for a few minutes. Then she got an error message which caused her to fear that she had lost her spot.

But several minutes later, another screen appeared showing her purchasing information. Then at about 12:30 she received an email confirming the $1000 purchase for Saturday's game.

"I'm just competely surprised," said Armstrong, a bit breathless. "It's kind of like I won the lottery."

Others told the Rocky they had an irritating experience.

"Could you please let the Rockies know 'it's deja vu all over again!'" Linda Wilson wrote in an e-mail to the Rocky.

Desperate fans scrambling to score tickets on the Rockies' Web site ran into screens giving 120-second countdowns, 60 seconds longer than Monday.

"It looks the same as yesterday," said Kevin Dunn, a Rockies fan in Denver.

Dunn expressed dismay that "they had to do it this way when they had other ways to do it."

"It really makes us look bush league out here," he said.

Alves, the Rockies spokesman, said the process moved along, albeit slowly.

"We're confident we'll sell these tickets today," he said earlier.

Fan Will Roach said the Web site offered him a pair of seats in Section 234 for the game on Saturday. He selected them, "chose the delivery option, then the next page wouldn't load," he wrote in an e-mail. "It crashed. I tried and tried to retrieve the tickets to no avail. It was painful to see a pair of seats in 234 slip away."

Sam Masiello, director of threat management at MX Logic, an e-mail and Internet security company based in Douglas County, downplayed the possibility of a malicious attack, today or Monday, as the cause for the difficulty getting through the system.

"The same thing is happening again today," he said. "There are still too many connections for the server to handle."

He said these comments as he was trying to buy tickets on the Rockies' Web site. Masiello also said the circumstances don't point to a malicious attack, noting that hackers today are looking to make money rather than disrupt the system.

"There's no financial gain to be seen in this situation," he said.

Joanne Kelley, Alan Gathright and Myung Oak Kim contributed to this report.