Monday night, thousands of college hockey fans headed to the TD Banknorth Garden to watch the Terriers beat up Northeastern. But Beanpot tickets were pretty hard to come by, so I’m sure that many of you had to try to find the least-creepy guy on the street to negotiate with. After agreeing to sell your kidney and/or lungs for a good view of the game, you owned a specific seat for the rest of the night — even if you weren’t capable of performing the most basic breathing functions.

For Boston University students, the idea of owning an actual seat at a hockey game was probably a little unfamiliar. We’re used to showing up at Agganis Arena three hours early and fighting for the best spots in sections 118 and 108. Unfortunately at BU, a general student ticket doesn’t give you anything besides access to the arena and a chance to politely tell the opposing goalie how ugly he is.

I, and many other students, made the attempt to avoid having to beat up little girls for good seats by upgrading our Sports Pass before the hockey season began. In essence, I was too lazy to show up at games early, so I paid about $150 to guarantee me the same seat in section 117 for every home contest. From the very first game of the year, however, I noticed the general admission section for students filled up remarkably fast. And since the area where I sit is literally three feet away, the loving BU community logically overflowed into sections 117 and 119.

For a while, it wasn’t even an issue because many of my fellow season ticket holders didn’t bother to show up for a lot of games, which left plenty of open seats. I could have cared less who was sitting in my actual seat, just as long as I had somewhere to sit and watch small children skate erratically during intermissions.

But as the season has progressed and the games have gotten more important, many people with reserved seats in my section are coming to the arena and finding students with general admission tickets sitting in their spot, refusing to move.

The problem usually gets peacefully resolved when the hockey game starts because once all the fans in the row stand up to cheer, everyone manages to squish together to fit in the excess fans. At the end of each period, the people in the overfilled rows usually play an intense round of Musical Chairs to decide who gets to sit down between periods. If you lose, it means you are either taking a long walk around Agganis or awkwardly asking if you can sit on your neighbor’s lap for the next 15 minutes (I suggest the first option).

But the issue became serious during the two games against Boston College. A large number of students who aren’t usually interested in hockey decided to go to the games and take whatever open seats they could find, even if they didn’t have tickets for that section. These people are like those Christians that only show up to church twice each year at Christmas and Easter. Those fakers steal the best kneelers and get all of the good spots in the wine line, but you can’t do anything about it because you’re in the house of God.

Well, some folks might think that Kenny Roche is a Hockey God, but Agganis Arena is definitely not a chapel. I witnessed several fights nearly break out before both BC games because fans with reserved seating were engaged in vicious arguments with people from the general student sections who were sitting in their seats.

I don’t know whether the ticket office gave out too many general admission tickets for those games or whether the cowbell guy was just taking up too much room in the stands: Either way, this problem should not exist.

For some strange reason, BU manages to take care of this issue in all other sports. My ticket to last Saturday’s basketball game told me exactly what section, row and seat to sit in to watch the Terriers literally brawl with Hartford. I didn’t need to worry about fighting for a place to sit or having to gently toss anyone out of my seat. The same has been true for any other sporting event or concert I’ve ever attended at BU. Yet, when it comes to hockey — easily our most popular sport — the school can’t seem to figure out how to organize seating correctly and efficiently.

The athletic department needs to either make the three sections behind each goal area completely general admission or completely assigned seating because the current strategy isn’t working. Security guards are in place to monitor the entrance to the rink, but once you get past them, there is no one to make sure you actually sit in your assigned section.

If the problem doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to you, then imagine this scenario: You buy a hockey ticket for section 117 and are forced to sit elsewhere because a (legally) drunk fan is already in your seat and won’t move. Then the second period rolls around and the arena’s announcer grabs the microphone. He announces the row you are supposed to be sitting in has just won the Qdoba free burrito contest. So now, not only has a drunkard stolen your seat, but he’s also stolen your free food.

I think it’s clear that something has to be done to fix whole situation because someone could get seriously hurt while fighting over a seat.

Or even worse — I could miss out on a free burrito.

Bennett Gavrish, a freshman in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].