Skip to content

Please try again later

What do you get when you mix two phone lines — English and French — with a renowned national sporting event, 32.

What do you get when you mix two phone lines — English and French — with a renowned national sporting event, 32.7 million southern Canadians and 30,000 Yukoners?

Answer: One heck of a busy signal.

Canada Winter Games tickets went on sale Monday.

Few callers got through.

If the line was busy — which it was all day — a message told callers to try again later.

“It was so busy yesterday they barely put the phone down and it rang again,” said ticketing committee chairman George Arcand.

Yukoners jammed the lines, he added.

 “If the people in Whitehorse don’t phone, the system is fine.

“But if they overload the system because they’re all phoning and making local calls, then the guy from Newfoundland can’t get through.”

Things will be fixed, added Arcand, noting an automated queuing service and another line will be installed.

But not everyone phoned.

Monday morning, the ticket lineup ran four abreast from Hougen’s ticket office.

The office could only handle two customers at a time and the wait was as long as two hours.

“We were a little overwhelmed,” said Arcand.

By 1 p.m., men’s gold medal hockey tickets were gone.

There are still tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies, but space is limited.

For more information, go to www.2007canadawintergames.ca