I want everyone to brace themselves for I am about to go on a rant/rave/bitchfest that may be my biggest one on Something's Bruin.

Everyone should've heard the news by now that those without Bruins season tickets will have to enter into a raffle for the right to purchase Winter Classic tickets. If you haven't, here's some information per boston.com.

"Registration for the general public random ticket drawing will begin Tuesday, Sept. 15, at noon online at www.nhl.com/winterclassic. Registration will continue through Monday, Oct. 5, at 11:59 a.m. Registrations received after the deadline will not be accepted. There is no fee.

Those selected in the drawing will be notified by Oct. 20 of their opportunity to purchase one pair of tickets (seated together). Prices range from $50 to $350."

This is where my rant begins, and I must warn you, it will probably be riddled with cuss words, so I apologize upfront. Last week, Patrick (who you guys still haven't heard from, but will, I promise) and I had a conversation regarding the topic:

"If you moved to another city, do you think there is any way that you could follow any of their teams as passionately as you do now?"

Immediately I said no, but as the discussion carried on, I changed my stance on the subject. As a passionate fan of the Bruins, Red Sox and Celtics, it pains me that I have to leave my ticketing for special sporting events to chance. What happened to the days of standing outside of Fenway Park or the Boston Garden for 4-5 hours just to get a ticket to a game? What happened to weekend camp outs in front of the ticket window?

It's bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

During the 2007 MLB playoffs, I was lucky enough to win the rights to buy tickets and bought a pair to game 6 of the 2007 ALCS (the one where J.D. Drew hit a grand slam) and sitting beside me were two pink hats that had no idea what was going on.

There used to be a time where I went to Bruins/Celtics/Red Sox games and was able to talk to my neighbor about the sport. Now its a selective process because you don't know who the fuck is going to be around you. Where are the people doing scorecards at Fenway? Where are the Bruins faithful who know the actual history and don't cheer at the video intro because of the song that's playing? Where were the people who suffered through Al Jefferson, Marcus Banks, Gary Payton...hell the whole 2004-2005 Celtics roster?

All of that is gone now and those who have been paying servitude to their team throughout the "shitty years" are fucked. Before this decade, it was easy to get Red Sox tickets, all you had to do was go to the ticket window. Now you have to wade through scalpers, bogus sites like stubhub and ebay that jack the price up and other bullshit that is makes watching a game in person not worth it.

The same thing goes for the Bruins. Where was everyone two years ago? I remember going to a game with my brother and best friend on a Sunday afternoon and the Garden was EMPTY. There was no one in our section, now every game will be sold out in under 5 minutes.

Sure, this is just a simple rant, but how do sport teams honor those who have been following the club for as long as they can remember? How do you honor someone who has watched 70-80 games on TV? Watched "The History of the Boston Bruins" so much I think I could recite everything Esposito says. Purchased jerseys, hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc?

I (and when I say I, I mean the passionate fans) have the same chance as someone who "thinks it would be really cool to go!!!one1one11!" but has no idea what hockey is, what it means or how it's played. They want to go because its the "cool thing to do".

Nothing could ever replace the passion I have the my Boston teams, but I'm sicked and tired of not being able to actually go to a game. I wouldn't mind being in San Diego and going to a Padres game because I get to watch baseball, at the ballpark, with fans who know about baseball and aren't attracted to some marketing machine or following the team because they won.

Online raffles for the right to win tickets is pure bullshit.

Sorry if this offended anyone, I just felt the need to express the feelings I'm sure some of you have.