Gameday at a new stadium brings all sorts of feelings. Excitement of course, a chance to see a football game. Nervousness, will we get to the field ok and on time? How will the fans be? How will parking be? Curiosity, what will the new stadium be like? Did I pick good seats for us? Hope, will it be a good game? Will the Bears win? Today's game brought out many of those same feelings, but it also brought out a new one. Resignation, I went to today's game knowing they were not going to win and expecting them to be destroyed. By the end of the game that expectation was realized. But the Bears are cruel to their fans. At the end of the first half they also left us with a bit of hope. Not a lot of hope, but a spark. Just enough light and heat to cause a faint little fire of hope to spring up. Only to have it dashed within seconds of the start of the second half. Cruelty at its worst.
The stadium in Seattle is quite nice. Getting there is easy other than the usual problem of poor traffic signage that is rampant in Seattle. Parking was easy and everyone was friendly. The stadium itself is quite nice and provides fans with a large open area as you enter the stadium where there are games, bands, give-a-ways and a variety of vendors. From the north parking lot you can see into the stadium and the field. Once you go up to the club level you find a large variety of food vendors as well as a seating area and a few restaurants. The largest impression is of openness. There is no crowding of fans and pushing to get through. The game seat area is well thought out with easy access to all the seats from either end of the aisle. They offer seat delivered concessions and we saw many people taking advantage of the convienience.
Surprisingly Bears fans were well represented. And many of them came in from Chicago for the game.
The thing that sticks out the most from our trip here is the fans and the support. The whole town seems to support the team with at least 6 companies offering various free items based on the Seahawks achieving various goals. 3 sacks, a free double burger at jack-in-the-box. 100 yards rushing and free jerky and slushies from 7-11 and so on. There were 4 different companies doing donations based on false starts, first downs and other items. And everywhere you go about town you see large 12 signs. This is their twelfth man and they take it seriously.
The Fans also support the team. Better than 80% of the crowd was in fan gear. Most of them had jerseys, but there were a large number that did it all the way up with face paint and costumes and who knows what. There are coordinated chants, total noise and bedlam as soon as the visiting team starts to get into their huddle and it lasts until at least the snap. And that is on every play. When the Seahawks are out there you can hear a pin drop in the stadium. Making noise that might cause the Seahawks to miss a signal or cause a false start is grounds for flogging around the stadium. And the fans are nice to the visitors. We had several people ask us to make sure that no one had hassled us. A couple of the security guards went out of their way to tell us to let them know if anyone gave us a hard time. And it wasn't because they were sure they were going to win. Before the game there was a legitimate level of concern and by half time there was some definite worry going on.
All in all I felt a lot like Misses Lincoln when asked "other than that one little thing, how was the play?" Everything was great, if only the game had been better and the outcome a bit different.
Tomorrow we head on back to Chicago. Our time in coffeeland is done and it is time to return to home and the solace of friends with whom we can share our pain and lick our wounds.
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