Greetings from the Pacific Northwest where gloomy gray skies Saturday have given way (for now) to a freshly scrubbed blue sky Sunday.
This being Seattle, where the locals love their coffee, their sports and their city, the morning newspaper hanging on my Pioneer Square hotel room doorknob this morning dispensed with a basic preview of the Sounders-Galaxy game, in favor of a love letter to the gameday experience at Qwest Field
That’s apt because that’s one of the main reasons I’m here – somehow I couldn’t see myself jetting off to say, suburban Frisco, Texas to take in a road Galaxy playoff game.
Wandering the largely empty Seattle streets last night in a gentle rain was not only nostalgic – I attended the University of Washington in the mid-80s – but a reminder why the urban gameday experience here is so different from the car-oriented version in Carson.
Here it is easy (as I did last night) to chill over an excellent Porter at the Elysian Fields microbrewery opposite Qwest Field wander a few blocks for the mandatory clam chowder at Ivars and complete the circuit at historic Pike Place.
Add in a frenzied 35,000 fans or so who will attend today’s game and its easy to see why folks here are a more than a little smug (and mortified over their crap pointyball football team coached, one should add, by a Southern California guy). Good thing South Bay boy and Sounders coach Sigi Schmid offsets that when it comes to real football.
The Galaxy face an uphill battle against a Seattle team far hotter than the local weather to reach the next round of the playoffs.
The at times heavy rain the Galaxy trained in Saturday is expected to return tonight, which should make for a treacherous surface on the fake field here (one of the few things the Sounders need to improve upon).
I’m heading out to take in a few more sights before the game begins and plan to blog from the stadium tonight so join me then.
If you missed our coverage leading up to the game check out the earlier entries on the blog here, here, here and here.