How many of you remember the old childhood game where you would take a daisy or other flower with petals, pull the petals off one at a time, alternately reciting "S/he loves me", "S/he loves me not", "S/he loves me" and so on? A good many of you, I imagine.
This is about the stage to which Seattle's whole love/hate relationship with the Sonics has devolved. Howard Schultz and his fellow owners want the City/County/State and/or taxpayers to pony up $220 million to either completely refurbish the Key Arena AGAIN or build them a new arena down near Safeco and QWest Fields, and they want to put up little or none of their own money to do it (Hello, Howard.....you are the founder and CEO of Starbucks....don't tell me you can't afford to help out a little. Paul Allen did when QWest was built!).
Governor Christine Gregoire has been on the record as saying she is in favor of extending the hotel tax that had benefitted the M's and the Hawks in this situation, in order to help the Sonics out. The Legislature, on the other hand, was NOT in favor of doing this.
The team has apparently been in discussions with the cities of Bellevue WA, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and OK City about moving the team to one of these locations. Commissioner Stern lambasted the City of Seattle and said that Seattle does not deserve an NBA team.
Lo and behold, today the City (which is the owner of the Key Arena) says that they are willing to "do a deal" to keep the Sonics in town, and all the team has to do is kick in just $18 million. Also, the City of Renton has offered the team a home there (Renton? Give me a break! Renton?)
The Trailblazers and owner Paul Allen are in a similar pickle down in Portland. If both of these teams pack up and leave, there will not be an NBA team in the Great Northwest again.
Pittsburgh? Still wanna give up your Penguins? I'll trade you the Sonics straight up. Let me know......
I guess that, if Mr. Porter wanted to give the Seahawks some bulletin board material, he has succeeded admirably.
Just exactly where in Jerramy Stevens' statement does he guarantee a Seahawks' victory? One might reasonably construe from his context that he anticipates a victory, but not guarantees one.
Besides, did not Mr. Bettis start it with his "guarantee" that the Steelers would come home with "one for the thumb" (a little hard to do, since none of the current Steelers has even one for the ring finger, much less all four fingers)?
It was only a matter of time before Porter weighed in one way or the other, and it has amused the Seattle team, in that Jerramy has already responded to the comment about putting him on his back every time, "we'll just see about that."
I am a 50 something health care professional transplanted to Seattle from SoCal in 2001 (and, before you ask, no, I don't want to go back). My tastes in sports are pretty eclectic, but in order of preference, I guess they would be baseball, hockey, basketball, football--col lege and pro/men and women alike. Teams I "HATE": USC (I went to UCLA); University of Michigan (born and raised in Columbus OH to a large family of OSU alumni/alumna e), and--probably most of all--the d***ed Yankees. I have worked in a variety of capacities at the MLB, NBA and NFL venues here in Seattle and at UW (hey, what true sports fan could pass up the possibility of getting paid to do something you would have done anyway (and had to pay for it)?)
