Mike Young belongs to an elite group.

He is one of the lucky few who will have a seat at the 2010 Olympic men's gold medal hockey final.

"Wow, it's so awesome. I can't wait," he said. "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don't want to give up on that."

Young, who lives in Squamish, B.C., found out by checking his online account with VANOC on Wednesday that he had received the four tickets in the lottery held for the coveted game.

VANOC said they received140,000 requests for gold medal hockey tickets.

To increase his chances Young said he enlisted the help of friends and family, who also applied on his behalf.

Olympic organizers wanted to make the sale of 2010 tickets as fair as possible, and said the lottery was the best way to do this.

The credit cards of those who applied were charged last week and those who were debited waited until Wednesday to find out if they had got the tickets they had hoped for.

Dave Smilie decided to jump in at the last minute and was surprised to find a charge of nearly $8,000 on his Visa.

He found he got eight tickets - - four the opening and four for the closing ceremonies. He did not get the hockey tickets he had set his heart on and had mixed emotions.

"I got opening ceremony tickets for sure. That's $1,100 a ticket, for three hours. That's probably the most expensive event in Vancouver per minute," he said.

"My friends were, like, wow, you must have hundreds of tickets for $8,000, but, no. I got eight tickets for two events."

But for some, missing out on tickets means not being able to cheer on competitors they know.

Debbie Patrick in Toronto is the friend of Olympic snowboarder Matthew Morrison. She had hoped to be in Vancouver to cheer him on.

Although when interviewed she had time left before Wednesday night's deadline to find out if she had been successful, she had not yet received that precious e-mail from VANOC.

"It would be horrible for Matthew to not have the support of people who have been with him the whole way," she said.

VANOC said any leftover tickets from this lottery will be sold to those who took part in it for 10 days starting from this Friday.

And everyone will get another chance next year when more tickets go on sale.

Caley Denton of VANOC said more tickets will be on sale by mid-2009 when the final capacity of the venues is determined.

With a report for CTV British Columbia's Leah Hendry.