The Roar of the Crowd

...by the time this goes up, I'll be on my way to The Clipper (a ferry which sails from the Victoria, BC harbour to the Seattle, WA harbour)...

The reason?

The last Seahawks pre-season game is tonight!!

...I'm so excited

I've seen a lot of live baseball games, but only one NFL game... the San Diego Chargers first pre-season game, and that was a couple of years ago. I've never been to see the Seahawks play live before. In fact, I haven't really been following them at all since my favourite player retired a couple years ago (#97 Patrick Kerney).

I love going to sporting events. In fact, I'll be at the Mariner's baseball game next weekend (Sept. 10th), and I saw them play (and beat) the Blue Jays on August 15th.

My husband travels a fair bit for work, and I usually tag along. In every major city (that has a team) we try to make it to a game. I've seen the Toronto Blue Jays get stomped by the White Sox, the Washington Nationals squeeze in a victory over Philly, the Yankees lose against Boston during their last year in the old stadium, and lose again to them in their new stadium. I've watched both the Padres and the Mariners a couple of times, sometimes win, sometimes lose. But I enjoy every game.

Though I'm not a die-hard fan by any stretch of the imagination, I do have certain *allegiances* to West Coast teams (since I live on the West Coast), or teams I've seen play in their home stadiums.

Generally I have two rules about sporting events. The first is to always buy a hat and cheer loudly for the home team (whoever it is). The second is to always cheer extra loud for whoever is #13 (my favourite number). I try to learn #13's name on every home team I've seen play live, but don't quiz me :)

What I love is the atmosphere of the stadium. I love getting right in the middle of all the excitement, how the crowd feeds off the plays, then the players feed off the crowd. The shared disappointment of losing or winning unites thousands of people in a single moment. At music concerts, I can never get into the crowd atmosphere, even if it's an artist I am really into... but at a baseball game, I fall right into the energy.

If you're at the Seahawks game tonight, I'll be down at the 50 yard line wearing my Kerney jersey and screaming my fool-head off. Beer and hotdogs will also likely make an appearance...