BOSTON – At noon, things looked pretty grim for Brewer native Doug DeAngelis as he evaluated his chances of scoring a Frozen Four ticket.

After calling around and scouring the Internet for tickets to the University of Maine’s Thursday NCAA semifinal game against Boston College, the UMaine graduate was resigned to the fact he would have to watch his beloved Bears on TV from a living room couch rather than from a FleetCenter seat.

A little more than 41/2 hours later, economic reality was fully dawning and the law of supply and demand was asserting itself. In four hours, the most asked questions and repeated phrases on the streets around North Station and FleetCenter went from “Got tickets?” to “Who needs tickets?”

Things were changing, and the suppliers were not happy with demand.

“It’s definitely not as good as it’s supposed to be, not that we’re trying to make any money out here, but it’s slow,” said a veteran ticket scalper who asked not to be identified. “I’m just trying to get a couple of bucks over face value.”

Evidently a couple of bucks in scalper lingo means double the face value because scalpers may not have been reaping the vast profits people were predicting – in the $400 per ticket range or higher – but they weren’t hurting either as they “let them go” for $100 two hours before game time.

About four hours after virtually conceding he would have to miss his first Frozen Four involving a Maine team, DeAngelis, who knows a thing or two about supply and demand as the president of Lynx System Developers in Haverhill, Mass., had breaking news.

The cell phone rang at 4:40 p.m. “This is Doug … I’m in,” he said. “I got a ticket for $100. I probably could have gotten it cheaper if I waited, but I really need something to eat.”

The scalper whose “Heavy” was not exactly bummed out by the surprising economic turn of events.

“I don’t even have any tickets for this one. I’m just trying to get two people in,” said the man wearing a bright red “Old Navy” sweatshirt and Daytona 500 baseball cap.

But what about those Internet prices?

“Baloney … Baloney. You think someone’s going to come out on the street and pay $400?… Please,” he said.

Boston Police were visible all over the downtown area, but deals were still being struck.

“We’ve been letting people selling tickets for face value go by, but the scalpers are looking for the inflated prices, so we’re trying to be vigilant about monitoring that,” said a Boston police detective who preferred not to have his name used. “We have officers undercover and we try to be visible on the street.”

Ray Keefe, a hockey fan and savvy ticket buyer from Hollis, N.H., had the right idea.

“Hey, I just want to see the game,” said the UMass.-Lowell grad. “I have what scalpers hate: Plenty of time, patience, and no urgent need to overpay for tickets.”

Mount Vernon resident Kathryn Markovchick, whose son Piner will play soccer for UMaine next fall, was also in good shape. She was looking for just one ticket since her husband Dave and son already had theirs. Well, that is they do if she gets hers.

“I don’t know if I’ll let my husband go with my son or make [Dave] watch it on TV in one of the sports bars,” she said with a chuckle. “I think we’ll get one though.”

Bangor resident and hockey fan Blaine Marston, who could have had two tickets Wednesday for $800 on eBay, was optimistic as well.

“This is my fifth Frozen Four. One of my best friends lives in Pennsylvania now and he’s on the priority lottery list to get tickets each year,” said Marston. “But we’re trying to find two more tickets for everyone in our group.”

Talk about frustration. Marston had a ticket, but if he couldn’t find two more, he was in danger of missing the game – totally.

“The hotel we’re in doesn’t have ESPN2 and I can’t leave two 15-year-olds back there alone, so if I can’t find anything, I could be out of luck,” he said.

Luck was a bit kinder to other Mainers milling around Causeway Street.

“We all put our names in the lottery to buy tickets with the NCAA. This was the first year I put in for them,” said Joe Simmons of Orono.

Simmons’ sister, Cindy Marquette, was the ticket lottery winner. She took husband Bob along with Chris Simmons and brother Joe. The quartet planned to sell their tickets to the Denver/Minnesota-Duluth game, but decided against it.

“We went to the first one because we couldn’t sell our tickets. All we could get was $10 for our tickets, so we figured we’d go in,” said Simmons.

Even with declining prices, the Maine tickets were much more valuable. One man traded his for tickets to Friday’s Red Sox home opener.

Maine fans like West Weiner, Aaron Smith and Erica Littlefield made their own luck. They were the first three students to get in line for UMaine’s limited ticket sales last week.

“I really wanted to go and knowing that tickets were scarce, I went over early since I didn’t have any classes Tuesday,” said Weiner, a freshman from Pottsville, Pa. “I got there around 10 a.m.”

That’s 10 a.m. Tuesday. The 75 tickets available went on sale at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The freshman trio brought chairs, sleeping bags, and other supplies for their long vigil.

“We even had an XBox and a TV out there so we could play games,” said Lincoln’s Smith. “We even had pizza delivered.”

“I think the first people besides us who showed up came around 4 p.m.,” Lincoln’s Littlefield said. “People looked at us like we were crazy, but … Oh well.”