The story of the Tico Times appealing to the Constitutional Court after the Fedefut (Costa Rica’s soccer Gods) denied them passes to tonight’s soccer game between the US and Costa Rica, reminds us of an old joke with the punchline, “buy a ticket!”

Every media outlet in the country wants passes to the big game. And why not?

A freebie for the countless hours of grind to bring the news to the people. But to file an appeal and then make a big deal of it seems, well, unprofessional. Here’s a tissue for those tears.

Even a hard working organization like AmeliaRueda.com got denied passes. So why does it make it so special for the Tico Times, in their mind, to be denied media passes?

David Boddiger, editor of the Tico Times, wrote in his article that his appeal was based on the past of the Tico Times, a publication that was founded in 1956 and had been given accredited press access to “important” games in the past.

I admit that for years I was an avid reader of the Tico Times. Every Friday I would buy my copy, cruise the pages, read every classified ad. Heck, on a number of occasions I even placed my own classified ads for various things. Even though I ran my own Costa Rica news publication, which I founded many years ago and recently sold.

Over time, the Tico Times newspaper got smaller and smaller. Fewer stories, fewer advertisers and even less classifieds. The online world was quickly overtaking the print, until last year in September when the Tico Times called it quits to their print edition, which was long overdue.

This was nothing new. All around the world print newspapers were ending up the same, moving to an online only platform for those who could make the change to survive.

The Tico Times of today is not the Tico Times of yesteryear, that is for sure, get used to it The Costa Rica Star is now King

Hey, where’s my press pass at The Costa Rica Star ?

I admit I didn’t get denied, just didn’t get an answer to my request from the soccer Gods.