It's the final countdown for people looking to buy tickets for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Applications for the first phase of the coveted ducats must be submitted by this Friday, Nov. 7, and, according to Burnaby ticket broker Kingsley Bailey, this is the best opportunity to secure tickets.

"If you want to catch the Olympic spirit," said the owner of Vancouver Tour and Tickets, "you'd better get your application in and hope you win the lottery."

The lottery Bailey is referring to is the one Vanoc officials will hold later this month to see who gets the right to purchase tickets to oversubscribed events such as the opening and closing ceremonies and the men's and women's gold-medal ice hockey games. And even winning the lottery will not be cheap, as the best tickets to the men's hockey final are $775, plus service charges, and the best tickets to the opening ceremonies have a face value of $1,100, plus service charges. In this case, winning the lottery doesn't mean you win any money, only the right to spend lots of money for highly desired tickets.

Bailey is no stranger to the Olympic spirit, having moved from Toronto to Calgary in 1988 to attend and work the Winter Olympics.

"I was just starting out in ticket reselling, and the Olympics were just a huge event," he said.

"The key difference between then and now is the face value of tickets was so much more reasonable, $20 or $30, and even if you had to pay a bit more than face value, it was still quite affordable for people and families to go."

Bailey, a Burnaby resident who runs his business out of downtown Vancouver, has sold Olympic tickets for the last four Olympics going back to the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

He said the biggest misconception is that the Olympics are a family event.

"I've got four kids, and if I want to take them to the gold medal game, that's going to cost me thousands of dollars," he said.

"Make no mistake about it, the Olympics are about big money and high rollers."

Some of those high rollers are Bailey's clients and, while $775 for the men's hockey final seems a tad high, listen to this cautionary tale from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

"I had 40 clients who wanted to see the final," Bailey said of the epic game where Canada beat the United States for its first gold medal in 50 years. "They paid between $8,000 and $10,000 for their tickets, and they were happy to pay that."

Add in the fact that tickets for Canada's semifinal game in Salt Lake City were going for $4,500, and you quickly realize that the best events at the Olympics aren't attended by paupers.

Vancouver Olympic Committee organizers are selling tickets in two ways during phase 1: individual tickets for each event and more than 65 Olympic Experience packages that include a variety of different events.

And while Vanoc officials stress that individual tickets for all events will be available through the lottery process, the best chance for people to get tickets is to enter the lottery for Olympic Experience packages.

The package with the most interesting collection of events is City Package No. 24, which opens with a $50 men's snowboarding ticket at Cypress Mountain.

Snowboard enthusiasts would be happy with just that event, but the other two parts of that package are a $775 ticket for the men's gold hockey game final and a $300 upper bowl ticket to the closing ceremonies.

Order a four-pack of this series and, after service charges and handling fees, you could pay as much as $4,676, which will come off your Visa in late November if you should be so "lucky" as to win the lottery.

Bailey does have good news for people who want to experience the Olympic spirit.

"The thing I loved about Calgary was being able to go to events like cross-country skiing and speedskating," he said. "Those tickets are still very affordable."

A quick look at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics website at www.tickets.vancou ver2010.com show those words to be true.

Cross-country tickets for Whistler Olympic Park start at $25, plus service charges, while short-track speedskating tickets at the Pacific Coliseum can be had for as little as $50 plus service charges.

For long-track speedskating at the new oval in Richmond, the cheapest tickets are $95 plus service charges.

Because Bailey's job is to secure hard-to-get tickets for his clients, he seems to be on the wrong side of VANOC officials, who don't want to see ticket resellers making large sums of money.

But Bailey argues that he's only performing a service that is dependent on what the market will bear.

"If you concentrate on just the gold medal game, yes, you're going to see people making lots of money," he said. "But how about that $50 snowboarding ticket? I expect I'll be giving those away to anybody who wants it because people who get that package are going to be selling the whole thing."

And while VANOC officials are looking at a way to put the ticket buyer's name on the ticket, Bailey says that's not the solution.

"Say I've got tickets to an event that I can't make," he said. "I give them to my brother-in-law, who's got a different last name than me. How can you not let him in? He got the tickets legitimately, even though his name isn't on the ticket."

As an example, Bailey holds up several World Cup tickets from the 2006 event in Germany, tickets that had microchips embedded in them with the information of the ticket buyer.

"I didn't hear any stories of people being turned away at the door," he said.

"If you had to check the name on the ticket with the person going in, it would take four hours."

Bailey also offers his customers a 100 per cent guarantee that tickets he provides them are authentic.

"In the last eight years, I've only had four instances where I had fake tickets," he said.

"The way I guard against it is I only deal with people I know and have dealt with me in the past. ... That's the benefit of being in the business for some time."

According to the Vancouver 2010 tickets website, once the Phase 1 application period ends this Friday, the lottery for oversubscribed events will be held from Nov. 8 to 23, with notification of winners continuing until Dec. 5.

Unsuccessful Phase 1 applicants then have from Dec. 8 to 22 to apply, on a first-come, first-served basis, for any remaining tickets. Phase 2 of ticket sales then resumes in February, 2009.

So your best chance to get tickets ends this Friday, and it's best to listen to Bailey one more time.

"I caught the Olympic spirit 20 years ago, and I can't wait for 2010," said Bailey.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event that the Olympics are coming to our own backyard."