SHUT OUT: Downsized Stanford Stadium means Cal fans need to get creative if they want tickets to hallowed event this year
When 14-year-old Zack Hazarabedian heard his family would miss their first Big Game in decades, he was devastated. The Hazarabedians and roughly 30,000 other Cal fans will be shut out of the fabled contest this year because of limited seating at the newly rebuilt -- and significantly smaller -- Stanford Stadium. "He thought we should sell the house to buy tickets," said his mother, Bonnie Hazarabedian of Moraga. "I told him, 'Sweetie, we can't.' To him, missing the Big Game is unthinkable." Perhaps never in the history of the game have Old Blues suffered so much anguish half a year before kickoff.
The 115-year-old Cal-Stanford football contest transcends mere athletics. It's a gathering of the tribes, a bacchanalian ritual akin to Mardi Gras and Christmas combined. For fans of both schools, the Big Game is seared into their internal clock like the turning of the seasons. In the past, any Cal season ticket holder automatically got a ticket to the Big Game. But that has changed -- tickets for November's showdown are expected to be rarer than Stanford victories last year. The only way for Cal fans to get Big Game tickets at this point is to have donated at least $6,800 to the athletic booster fund or to buy Stanford season tickets. Many have.
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