HOUGHTON — It’s still not too late to purchase tickets for the Pigs N Heat hockey game between local police and local firefighters scheduled for Saturday.

Lt. Nick Roberts of the Houghton City Police Department says tickets are still available at the police department office, and can be purchased at the time of the game at the Michigan Technological University Student Development Complex, where the game will take place.

Ticket sales so far are going well, Roberts said, but an exact number of sales will not be known until after the game.

“I don’t want to jinx us and say we’re headed toward a record year, but we’re headed toward a very good year,” Roberts said. “There are a lot of people who wait until they get to the game to buy them. If that’s the case, we should have a really good year this year.”

Because the Pigs N Heat did not host a hockey game last year, the organization is hoping for a record attendance this year, which was one of the reasons the game this year will be played at the SDC: more and better seating. Roberts said that although they are hoping for record ticket sales, he doubts the attendance will reach the capacity of the arena.

“Are we going to fill up the SDC?,” Roberts asked. “No. It’s not like a Huskies game; we don’t get those numbers, but we still get a lot of people going.”

“We just want to emphasize: buy your tickets. The more tickets we sell, the better results we’ll have, because it all goes into the fund. We assisted with $8,000 in donations this year.  We used $8,000 out of the fund helping victims this year, between 2016 and early 2017, so it’s $8,000 we have to recoup, plus on top of that.”

Roberts said that the Pigs N Heat organization recognizes the thousands of college students in the area as members of the community, several of whom have been helped by the charity in the past, some as recently as last summer.

“We had a fire just this summer downtown,” Roberts said. “Those were all college kids in those rentals, and we paid out to them, so we want to make sure they know they’re part of our community, and that means also buying tickets.”

Roberts, who is one of the major organizers and promoters of the event, is also a member of the police B Team. He said while many student organizations donate time to help at the game, few students purchase tickets to attend.

“We just want to make sure they know, because we didn’t really have good ticket sales out on campus, as usual. We don’t usually get good ticket sales there. It’s tough. We really want them to understand and how much it helps if they sponsor us, even if they buy one ticket, three bucks.”

Roberts said between 2016 and early this year, Pigs N Heat has paid out $8,000 in donations to fire and accident victims, including to the students who lost their apartments to last summer’s structure fire on Shelden Avenue in Houghton. The organization needs to replace the money paid out over the past year in addition to adding more to the fund.

“I just want to make sure they’re aware: we would appreciate it if they showed up and bought a ticket, because they benefit from the Pigs N Heat organization also, and we have given out to hardships to college students, also,” Roberts said. “If I could get every college student to buy one ticket at three dollars, I’d be a happy camper. I mean, we would have a record year.”