Sonics
July 26, 2007
Why the NBA Gambling Scandal Isn't Actually A Big Deal
As a season-ticket holder/ paying customer, I feel entitled to an opinion on this So all the sports blathermonkeys have climbed atop their respective high-horsies to tell us that the NBA referee scandal is really really bad. Terrible. The league won't recover. All that. David Stern held a press conference as serious and grave as anything Boosh has mustered up since he decided to explode Iraq. The polls on ESPN reflect the will and whims of the people -- and the people seem to think that the point-shaving by an NBA ref is more damaging to the NBA than the Michael Vick situation is to the NFL. Or something like that. Mostly people are all screechy and uptight about this. I gottatellya: as an NBA season-ticket holder, I actually don't think it's such a big deal. Three reasons why: (1) The NBA is more show that sport: so some ref...
Posted by thatkid at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2007
New Golf Clubs, Sonics, And Photos Of Food
And the only reason I'm even writing this is that there's a game on that I'm interested in watching Were it not for the US U-20s playing in quarterfinal of the U-20 World Cup this fine morning, I probably wouldn't have even gotten my act together for even this meager post. Such is the unique combination of too much salaried activities and the traditionally delayed commencement of summer here in C@L -- it's just been tough to find too much time to play with the electric internets. (Actually, that's not entirely true. I spent a lot of time on the electric internets last weekend, but that was in the service of commerce. I finally dealt with myself and bought a proper set of golf clubs. My current clubs were fine, I guess, but they were older than I am, and, well, I wanted the new hotness kind that (a) go...
Posted by thatkid at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2007
Hey There Sonics, Been A While
After a somewhat lengthy hiatus, I caught three games in five days at Key Arena It's been a while (almost two months) since I've posted in re: the Sonics. Odd confluence of circumstances there. The last couple games I watched in February were just disheartening enough to convince me that the only possible topic for a post would be the official announcement of the Sonics' participation in the Greg Oden/ Kevin Durant sweepstakes. Then they went on the road for a bit, I didn't have many tickets, and, well, ThatKid went radio-silent on the Supes. Then, amidst minimal fanfare, I attended a whopping three games in five days. Whilst I'm not entirely sure that much has changed from mid-February in terms of the team's prospects, I was at least treated to two semi-exciting NBA games over the past couple days. That is, the Sonics definitely aren't making the playoffs, but...
Posted by thatkid at 8:47 PM | Comments (0)
February 3, 2007
Sonics Lose, Bulls Gawk At Dance Team
And here I thought I was going to complain about Ray Allen getting snubbed for the All-Star Team I expected that today's post-Sonics-game post would be go roughly like this: Ray Allen got totally screwed out of the All-Star game because he's not flashy enough and, as a result, I am beginning to believe that the national sporting press really does have a big-market bias and that no one cares about C@L and the Pacific Northwest. I would emphasize my point by pointing to his stats over the past month: 30.4 ppg in the month of January (26.7 ppg for the season) on 49 percent shooting, 42.3 percent from three, and 4.8 assists per game. I would say that it's all the more impressive in the context of Rashard Lewis's absence and the fact that other teams realize that Ray is going to take pretty much all of the shots...
Posted by thatkid at 6:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2007
The Answer Finally Comes To C@L (While I'm In The Country)
In which I finally see Allen Iverson play in C@L, albeit in the incorrect uniform Even though they only won one out of two games (a great finish against the T-Wolves on Friday, following their Tuesday loss to the Nuggets), this was as good a week for the Sonics as they've had in a while. After losing (gulp) their first six games of calendar year 2007, the Supes have won four out of the past five, with their only loss coming in a tight game on Tuesday night against a focused Denver Nuggets team. Though they're still in last place in the Northwest Division (yikes) and nine games under .500, things are, er, sort of looking up? At least they're hustling every night and pretending to care; games have been a pleasure to attend of late, and I'm looking forward to my next trip to Key Arena. This was also...
Posted by thatkid at 1:43 PM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2007
LeBron, Andre Waters, and Howard Eskin Looks Like The (Burger) King
The BronBron show comes to C@L; also, Andy Reid talks to WIP for 40 minutes so that 5 doesn't have to After a completely disastrous couple of weeks for the Sonics, the team has managed to cobble together two wins in a row -- against teams that weren't even cupcakes (Utah and Eastern-Conference-leading Cleveland). Though after seeing Cleveland, I'm at a loss to explain the Eastern Conference. Obviously they have a LeBron, and those appear to be all the rage, but past that, I'm not completely sold. I guess Larry Hughes is something of a player, but he didn't look good against the Sonics. Ilgauskas is actually one of the few centers worthy of the name in the league, and I will take back everything I said about him being useful for fantasy purposes only. LeBron was, as advertised, pretty impressive in person, especially in a bigger-faster-stronger way. He seemed...
Posted by thatkid at 8:14 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2007
Bringing The Heat
The Eagles head to NOLA to face the Saints in the divisional playoffs -- just like the 1992 season It didn't take much for me to dig up my copy of Bringing The Heat, Blackhawk Down and Killing Pablo author Mark Bowden's account of the 1992 Eagles season. (Note that I still can't believe that this book exists; acclaimed non-fiction journo writes an insider account of the early 90s Birds? I remain stunned.) The book opens with the '92 team's wild-card playoff game against the Saints at the Superdome. That game was the last time that the Saints and Eagles met in the playoffs (which, considered the Saints franchise has played in six total playoff games -- and won one of those -- shouldn't be terribly surprising). The Eagles won 36-20. And now the Eagles return to the city that God hath smoten. It's really tough to argue with this...
Posted by thatkid at 4:29 PM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2007
It Was A Dark And Stormy Night
Omens abound at the Sonics - Knicks game! I really should have known that this wasn't going to go well for the Sonics. I usually park on the Queen Anne side of Key Arena, most nights rougly halfway home to my apartment (never mind what that says about the absurdity of driving at all -- trust me, it makes sense). But my plan for tonight had me heading to Capitol Hill for a post-Sonics going-away party, and so I parked on the EMP side of the C@L Center. A block South of the McDonald's, actually. So I park. It's pouring out. Just horrible. Usually the C@L rain is a light but endless mist sort of thing, but this was a legit storm. Coming down hard and heavy, lots of wind, really miserable stuff. Proud denizen of C@L that I am, I typically eschew an umbrella in favor of a hood,...
Posted by thatkid at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2006
Sonics - Ray-Ray = 3 Wins and Tough Defense?
I guess all it really took was an ankle injury to the Sonics' best player to convince them to play defense? Well would you look at that! The Sonics have won three games in a row (and four in a row at home), and even gutted out a nice win last night after giving up (wait for it) 70 points in the first half to the Warriors. And they've won the last three without all-around-best-player Ray Allen, who's out with an ankle injury. Sure, the wins came against the Hawks, the Hornets, and the Warriors, but hey, for a team that hadn't beaten much of anything/ anyone this year, we'll take it. I've spent a lot of time at Key Arena of late, attending the last five consecutive home games. It seems like a lot, but given that I didn't actually make my first trip until December, it mostly just...
Posted by thatkid at 9:21 PM | Comments (4)
December 2, 2006
Sonics Season Opener (For Me At Least)
After a month on the road, I finally attend my first Sonics game of the year; predictably, they lost After talking a lot of game about how I was going to spend a lot of time blathering on about the Sonics on ThatKid, I barely say a word about the team for an entire month, and I certainly don't offer any direct commentary on how they're playing. In all honesty, due to not being C@L for the month of November, I really hadn't seen them play an entire game until Wednesday's night loss to the Magic. I followed that with another trip to Key Arena last night (a win against Indiana) and now feel more than qualified to spout off about the Supersonics. My high-level bulletpoints on the last couple games: I Don't Think We'll Need To Quarrel Over Playoff Tickets: in a tough Western Conference, I just don't see...
Posted by thatkid at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2006
Curling the Rock in The House
It's sort of like shuffleboard on ice, only with Canadian accents and appropriate levels of game-specific jargon Prior to last night, my experience with the sport/ game of curling had been limited mostly to snippets of Olympic coverage in moments of February insomnia. I was pretty down with it, in a sort of team handball kind of way: I didn't know too much about it, but it looked like it would be pretty fun to play. Also, it definitely suggested a darts-and-bocce-you-can-down-cocktails-whilst-you-play-it vibe. Check, check, and check. Good times at the Granite Curling Club in North C@L last night (the only dedicated curling sheet in the continental U.S. west of North Dakota!). My quick hits on curling: Excellent jargon, as expected: as might be expected from a Canadian game, curling employs a most excellent catalog of game-specific jargon. The big grantie things that you push down the ice are called...
Posted by thatkid at 3:07 PM | Comments (1)
November 8, 2006
C@L Says We Don't Need No Stinking Sonics!
Well that didn't take very long In addition to re-electing Maria Cantwell to the U.S. Senate and restoring the legal status of lapdances in the city of C@L, C@L voters approved Initiative 91, which pretty much means that a mere week into the NBA season, it's pretty clear the Sonics won't be playing in Key Arena. Initiative 91 requires that the city get a "fair profit" from any money that it sinks into an arena for a sports team. Voters essentially said that they weren't interested in funding another sports arena. And now the mayor has to all but admit that the city won't be able to get anything done for the Okie-Owners. And here we thought that the will-they-stay-or-will-they-go thing might last all season! Whew! That sure is going to save us all a lot of stress -- and sell tons of tickets! What's all the more charming about...
Posted by thatkid at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
November 6, 2006
Sonics Season Preview: The Team Isn't Really Moving, Honest
So do we have to pretend that the Sonics aren't really moving to Oklahoma? Doesn't that just embarrass us all? For a guy with such obvious and frequently communicated passions in re: professional sports, I find it mildly ironic that I never owned a season ticket to anything until I moved to C@L and got in with some buddies on Sonics' season tickets. They were looking for a fourth person, and I was looking for a steady evening activity (especially necessary to liven up the deep, dark winter) and a way to meet some new folks. Also, I was pretty shocked by how affordable Sonics tickets were -- not only would I get to be a season-ticket holder, but I would be able to do it on the cheap. In retrospect, going in on the Sonics tickets was one of the best decisions I've made out here. Despite the team's,...
Posted by thatkid at 2:40 PM | Comments (1)
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