Seattle City Reportedly Getting New Sports Arena

I would have to say, yes, there are some exciting players on the team. The Hanzal-Vrbata-Whitney line is solid, and Mike Smith is a threat to score from anywhere on the ice (he’s the goalie, but I’m only mostly joking). Smith is athletic and loves to play the puck, but sometimes he just doesn’t know when to get back or stay in the net. Boyd Gordon was the biggest offseason pickup and is winning 57% of his faceoffs (9th best in the league and very important to the PK). Okay, maybe there’s not much to be excited about if the third thing on my list is a faceoff percentage.

Boedker and Korpikoski are fast and have 20-goal potential. Doan is a decent role player, but the fans down here have elevated him to Edgar status without Edgar stats.

Overall, Matthew is correct, as defense rules the day down here. The power play is a joke, and if they get a lead they trap their opponent to death. Yandle is very talented with the puck and can create opportunities and space, but often has silly turnovers in the defensive zone. Ekman-Larsson has 21 points from the blue line and is just 20 years old, but still learning how to play defense. David Schlemko might just be the best defensive player on a good defensive team, while Adrian Aucoin and Rostislav Klesla are also consistantly solid.

The biggest reason for optimism is Dave Tippett and goalie coach Sean Burk, because without them, this team wouldn’t be anywhere near the top 8. If the young forwards (Korpikoski, Brule, and Boedker) make big strides in the next couple years, or if they can infuse some outside talent onto the front line (through draft, trade, or FA), they have 105-point potential with that young, good defense.

The Coyotes have 32,000 Twitter followers. and 81,000 Facebook fans. So that’s more scientific.

while the UW football program’s resources (I’m assuming) are based more on the boosters’ personal connections to their institution.

Dallas has TCU
Philadelphia has Temple
Toronto has U Buffalo plus a CFL team
New York has Army
WashDC has U Maryland
Boston has Boston College
Denver has both UC Boulder and CSU
The Bay Area has Stanford and UC Berk.

I’ve become more of a soccer fan with an exciting team in town, and I hate to admit that it now frustrates me when they are bad instead of being indifferent. Holy shit, I think I like the Sounders in a real emotional, fandom way. Whaaaaaat.

But even with the Sonics 2.0, I wouldn’t give two shits about the NBA. I was a fair weather fan of Sonics 1.0, much more into D1 basketball (so it’s kind of cool that the Huskies might be called “good” now, and hey Seattle U tries real hard).

A hockey game I wouldn’t be massively invested in, but I would happily go to a few games a season because hockey is the single most exciting sport to watch live.

Sonics and Mariners were easily my favorites growing up. I didn’t learn football till I got to middle school, but fell in love with it immediately and I adopted the Seahawks and Huskies. I started following soccer when the Sounders were announced, and became legitimately crazed about the sport by First Kick against NJRB. I’ll root for any sports team if they have “Seattle” on their uniform, they represent our community and bring us pride.

Sounds like it would be a public bond payed off by ticket revenue, ultimately backed by public money. So taxpayers would be on the hook.

Not a tax, but public money, right?

Zero cost to people who don’t use or benefit from the stadium. Because that was the issue that killed previous deals. Doesn’t mean that none of the funding is coming from taxes, just that those taxes come from people using the stadium in the form of higher ticket prices.

That’s the important difference here when compared to different deals that is likely to make it more pallatable to the public.