Super Bowl Lottery-Are You In? Apr 13, 2005 | More

With the NFL rookie draft coming April 23-24, the hopes of fans not rooting for the New England Patriots rest squarely on the job their respective front offices perform during this tension-filled weekend.  It is also an opportunity for football to take the stage, if only briefly, in the news.  It’s like putting a band aid on an amputated limb, but we’ll take what we can get.

Since it is never too early to start thinking about the Super Bowl, I thought I would mention a very important deadline that follows the draft.

Most of you know that the NFL conducts a lottery for a certain number of NFL tickets, but how many of you have actually entered the lottery? We know our Philly fans Chris Dolfi and Tom Walls of “The Last Row" fame won their local lottery last year.  If you aren't a season ticket holder for your team, you still have a chance, albeit a slim one, with the NFL Super Bowl ticket lottery. 

The clue here?  Ya have to enter to won.

I have sent in my entry and thought I would share the mechanism with Shark fans as well. It really is a simple, painless process.

Straight from NFL.com -

“The only method the NFL has to distribute tickets to the public is through a random drawing.  There is no other way for the general public to purchase tickets.  The NFL does not sell tickets to travel or ticket agents.

Entries for the random drawing are accepted between Feb. 1 and June 1 of the year preceding the game in question.  All ticket requests must be sent via certified or registered mail.  Those selected in the random drawing will have the opportunity to purchase two tickets.”

That means you have until June 1^st of this year to get your request in.  Certified Mail is around a buck, and even if you couldn’t afford the tickets you’d easily find someone to pay you a premium for them…maybe right here at FantasySharks.com…hint hint.

Send your requests to-

Super Bowl Random Drawing
P.O. Box 49140
Strongsville, OH 44149-0140

Only one request per household.  Sending multiple requests will not increase the odds of winning, and may even have just the opposite effect.

I’m not banking on the lottery, but it’s worth exploring.  In the mean time, I am hoping to gain my Buccaneers press credentials, which I plan to parlay into at least a request for a Super Bowl press pass.  Wouldn’t that just be the shiznit?  Hoping to give my karma a boost, I listened to the first Super Bowl XL planning committee press conference today, and the first thing I thought of was “Man, it’s gonna be freakin’ COLD up in Detroit Michigan.” 

Living in Florida I am ill-prepared to brave the winter’s icy embrace, and flying into Detroit is no picnic, but I’m willing to sacrifice myself, for the good of the game and Fantasy Sharks, of course.  It could give my column’s name, The Icebox, a whole new meaning.