Rhapsodies

I admit it. I’m a terrible fan. I root for a team because it makes watching the game interesting and if you’re going to root for anyone it might as well be the home team. Sad, isn’t it. To make matters worse even when my team does win, my enthusiasm generally consists of “Oh. They won? Cool.” Not much too much to write home about.

So I my anticipation for the Super bowl was at best mixed. For many a year I hadn’t really been caring about it especially since the quality of the ads have gone down hill over the years I would skip the game entirely with very little guilt. So even with the Seahawks making it, my basic attitude had been just general apathy. I had gotten all worked up over the 49ers game but that was with the prize of the Super Bowl. Now that they had made it didn’t seem to matter to me, after all even though a win would be great it would be still be over. Besides I had let myself be taken in by the general consensus, which is to say close but in the Broncos’ favor

But since my team did make it to the Super bowl I felt obligated to show solidarity so I decided to go and watch it at one of my favorite old haunts, the Big Time Brewery.  Sports for me are a social event and I prefer to watch it with company.  I rarely watch it alone even if it’s a game I mostly looking forward to.

Anyway I spent the afternoon working and when three fifteen rolled along I headed out taking my own sweet time not expecting much until

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard the cheering as I got in. The Seahawks had scored two points in the first five minutes. From there it just got better with Seahawks dominating the Broncos in every possible way only giving up only one touchdown.

The social experience of this was wonderful. For three hours it felt I was hanging out with two hundred of my best friends cheering, high fiving and hugging.  All in all a loud, excited and, with one or two exceptions, very well behaved crowd.

There were only a few off moments. One person got thrown out and I had to buy someone a drink after I accidentally knocked the one he was drinking over (he had it under the chair I thought would be a good place to stow my backpack.) Also I haven’t followed the Seahawks scene to know what the deal with  Skittles is so I didn’t appreciate it when I got one between the eyes when someone threw a handful of them into the air.

But this really didn’t matter that much as I was having too much fun screaming myself hoarse. At the end I no longer cared if the Seahawks won or not. I just wanted to see if they could get to fifty points. I think that’s one thing I’ve enjoyed about this season. We’ve been spoiled so badly (well?) that we think any win under ten points is a failure. To a certain extent that’s how I felt when we allowed the Broncos to score once.

After the game Big time emptied out very quickly, going from somewhere around 200 to somewhere around 5 patrons in a matter of minutes. I stayed to finish my celebratory barley wine before I headed out and saw where every one had gone. The Ave was completely blocked up by manic fans. Laughing shouting sitting on cars. The air reeked of fine tobacco as people treated themselves to cigars. When I finally got home I found as big a block party as the one I saw was it had nothing on the one in Pioneer Square, Belltown and Capitol Hill.

All in all this was a great day to be living in this city. I think I am finally going to break down and buy myself a team blazer.