University of Hawai'i football fans began the mad dash yesterday to get tickets, flights and hotel rooms for the Jan. 1 Sugar Bowl game between the Warriors and the Georgia Bulldogs.

About 5,100 tickets were sold online and at the Stan Sheriff Center box office yesterday as the school's allotment of 17,500 tickets were made available to season ticket holders.

Even after getting their tickets, dozens of UH fans found themselves like Danielle McCarty and her husband, Jeff, with vouchers for Sugar Bowl seats but no airline tickets or hotel reservations. Others had hotel and airline reservations but no Sugar Bowl tickets.

Danielle McCarty, a 30-year-old UH senior, spent $290 for two Sugar Bowl tickets yesterday at the Stan Sheriff Center box office.

McCarty planned to go back online last night to find some way to get to New Orleans and some place to stay.

"This will be my first time going to a big bowl game like this," she said. "I just feel really lucky to be going to a great university that has a great football team. We're just going along for the ride. I don't know how much it's going to cost. We're just going to have a good time and try not to worry about it."

Panda Travel, one of UH's partner travel agents, had booked 150 hotel, airline and ground transportation packages by late yesterday that included Sugar Bowl tickets.

"It's been a madhouse," said Kehau Amorin, special projects manager for Panda Travel. "We sold 150 packages and have a waiting list of over 1,500 people."

Panda Travel sold out of its five-night Sugar Bowl packages that ranged in price from $2,599 to $2,799, depending on the airline.

Panda officials are now hoping to organize three chartered flights each capable of carrying 247 people, Amorin said.

"We're not going to stop until every airline tells us there's nothing," Amorin said. "There's a huge demand and our goal is to take as many UH fans as possible."

VOUCHERS ISSUED

Season ticket holders who bought the first tickets yesterday got a voucher and will receive the actual game ticket in the mail or can pick them up at the Stan Sheriff ticket office beginning at 8 a.m. Dec. 17. UH officials won't know where the seats are located in the Louisiana Superdome until the tickets arrive today or tomorrow.

On Sunday, while UH's Web site was overloaded with heavy traffic, University of Georgia officials announced that they had not only sold out their contractually required 17,500 tickets, but also sold an extra 5,000 seats.

John McNamara, UH's associate athletic director of external affairs, said it's not surprising that Georgia sold out its ticket allotment so quickly because the Bulldogs have made eight Bowl Championship Series appearances and are accustomed to the process.

The Warriors, in contrast, are enjoying their first BCS appearance and UH officials want to proceed cautiously to make sure there are tickets for the booster club, Koa Anuenue, UH corporate partners and this year's season ticket holders, McNamara said.

"This is a new situation for us," McNamara said. "We're being careful in honoring how we traffic the tickets."

'TOO MANY QUESTIONS'

UH had 22,800 season ticket holders for the football season this year.

One of them, David Carvalho, showed up at the Stan Sheriff box office yesterday after unsuccessfully trying all night Sunday to buy Sugar Bowl tickets online.

He ended up spending $1,255 for nine tickets.

"I've got too many questions to ask," Carvalho said. "Where are these tickets going to be? How are we going to get there? I haven't tried to get airfare and hotel because I hear it's a nightmare already. Am I frustrated? No. But it is unorganized."

Like others, however, Carvalho said he can afford to be patient after decades of watching hapless UH football teams.

He remembers walking up to UH games during losing seasons "and I'd practically be given a ticket," Carvalho said. "Actually, you'd literally get a ticket for free because some guy would just hand you one."

So no matter what it takes or what it costs, Carvalho expects to find himself in the Superdome on Jan. 1 screaming for the Warriors.

"It doesn't matter because this is a dream season," said Carvalho, 43. "It might never happen in my lifetime. As long as I'm alive, this may never happen again."

TARGET OF TAUNTS

Two days after UH capped an unprecedented season as the country's only undefeated team, en route to the Sugar Bowl, the Warriors yesterday also found themselves in new territory as the targets of taunts on a national scale.

Among the trash talk on blogs and other Web sites yesterday, Travis Fain, a columnist for The Telegraph newspaper in Macon, Ga., wrote "I want Colt Brennan's head on a stick. I want that pretty boy Hawaii quarterback driven through the Superdome turf. ... Destroy Hawaii."

McNamara was hardly surprised.

"They only throw stones when you're on a pedestal," he said. "We've reached a plateau we've never been to before. There will be no shortage of critics."

McNamara welcomes "good-natured banter" and said UH officials "will certainly stay above the fray."

But McNamara hopes UH fans don't devolve into similar "mean-spirited" comments.

There are no plans yet to broadcast the Sugar Bowl at the Stan Sheriff Center because of scheduling conflicts with other UH events.

But discussions are under way to organize UH-related activities in New Orleans. And McNamara urged fans to continually monitor www.hawaiiathletics.com for travel, event and other updates in the days and weeks leading up to the Sugar Bowl.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.