Seattle’s drinking club with a biking problem (.83) is hosting its 4th-annual “FUCKING HLLS RACE” Feb. 22  on Bainbridge Island.

This premier cycling event draws cyclists from all over the region to compete for cash and  liquid prizes as well as some decent biking gear donated by top-of-the line companies.

The course is a knee-crushing, 33-mile ride around Bainbridge Island, but there’s an all-you-can eat chili feed (vegan and meat) at the end so it’s totally worth it. The race is $7 and it will also cost you $8 to ride the ferry to the starting line. Meet at Alaskan and Washington under the Viaduct at 8:30 a.m. (look for riders sporting the home-made, Elvis-themed pirate bibs).

“It’s really about the spirit of cycling and promoting unity within the community,” lied an extremely belligerent and noticeably intoxicated Derrick Ito, FHR Organizer.

“The prize lists includes cash, booze and a ton of great bike schwag from our great sponsors,” Ito said, while trying hard to maintain his balance and hide the fact that he was slurring his words.

Ito has a an expanding prize list that includes a lap dance from a local stripper, liquid prizes from Cafe Metropolitan and a complete Hammerhead 7 bicycle from Dahon. The bicycle will be raffled off with proceeds to benefit a locally-owned bike company.

For more information, visit point83.com.

Fuck the Hills Race Flyer

roller derby in key arena, bumbershoot 2006

With the Sonics blown out of town and turned into the Thunder, some of the space on the Key Arena calendar is going to be filled with another knock-down, drag-out sort of event. Starting the month, the Rat City Rollergirls are making the move from a hangar at Magnuson Park to the heart of Seattle Center:

Their first bout, scheduled for February 7, 2009, will debut all four teams including the Derby Liberation Front, Grave Danger, the Sockit Wenches and the Throttle Rockets at Key Arena.
…  
“It’s rewarding to be part of such a competitive, high-level sport with truly dedicated fans and players,” explains Maeleeke Lavin of the Rat City Rollergirls’ Derby Liberation Front team. “As part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), we’re an organization run by women skaters for women skaters. Roller derby is not the female version of a male sport, and that fact, along with our do-it-yourself roots, gives us an authentic quality that many other mainstream sports lack.”

Tickets will run $19 for adults and $12 for kids, with season ticket packages available [ticketma$ter]. In the new 5,500 person seating configuration, bloodthirsty fans will no longer be segregated from docile families (or vice versa) so that they can all cheer and puzzle over the rules [wiki] of lead jamming together.

It’s always good to go out with a win which is exactly what the Seattle Thunderbirds did tonight, shutting out the Chilliwack Bruins 2-0 in their final game ever at the Key Arena tonight, closing a thirteen and a half years long chapter in Seattle’s hockey history book.

The move to Kent’s new ShoWare Center is not the first relocation in Seattle hockey: Seattle’s hockey teams have played in a variety of venues since our first team, the Metropolitans (the first US team to win the Stanley Cup, way back in 1917) played at the 2,500 seat Seattle Ice Arena, located across from what is now the Olympic Hotel downtown Seattle. It may be one of the most exciting, however. The Show is the nation’s first LEED Silver certified events center, built to exacting standards that promote environmental sustainability and create a healthy building that uses water and energy efficiently. The ShoWare Center seats between 6,500 and 8,000 depending on the event and, most exciting for hockey fans, has been designed to be particularly friendly to hockey as the new home of the T-birds. It’s a beautiful new facility with comfortable seats and great views wherever you sit, perfect for both sports and concerts.

The Thunderbirds debut at their new arena on Saturday, January 3, taking on the Everett Silvertips, but the facility is offering fans and anyone else interested in checking out this new venue a sneak peek at Grand Opening party on Friday, January 2, from 4 to 9 pm. T-birds players will be on hand to greet visitors, as will Buckets Blazes of the Harlem Globetrotters (playing at the Show on Wednesday, February 18). Also on hand will be the Kent Meridian High School Orchestra and dance teams from Kentwood, Kentlake and Kentridge High Schools and an interactive show for kids presented by Radio Disney.

The ShoWare Center is located at 625 W. James Street, in Kent, easily accessible by car via I-5, highway 167, or I-90 to highway 18, but in keeping with the green spirit, I highly recommend taking the Sounder or one of the more than twenty bus routes that serve downtown Kent–there are no less than three major Metro stops with a block of the center. Cyclists can easily get there via the Interurban or Green River trails and take advantage of their 50 onsite bike racks.

HA HA. You were really so desperate to steal a major sports franchise that you stole one from Seattle, in a year where everything this town touches turns to rust. And now your “Thunder” are 1-12

You think firing your coach is going to solve anything? You paid your money and you took your choice, and that choice is tainted with the Seattle Contagion.

Don’t let the Thunder get too close to your precious football teams, now.

Yes, tomorrow in Pullman the “college” “football” teams based at the University of Washington and Washington State University will play a “college” “football” “game” that will determine who goes home with the Apple Cup.

And it could well be the worst college football game we’ll ever see in our lifetimes. As best as I can tell, no two teams from the so-called “BCS conferences” (Pac 10, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East) have ever met in a game with both teams having tallied 10 losses already in the season. Yes, the college season was only 10 games long from WWI to the 1960s and it’s only been expanded to 12 this decade, so having two ten loss teams meet has been highly improbable to impossible for most of college football history. Still, an 0-10 Husky team facing a 1-10 Wazzu team — that one loss being against Portland State, which is in the so-called Football Championship Subdivision, one level below the level Wazzu plays at, the Football Bowl Subdivision — is a rare thing.

One we should be happy is rare, because it’s going to be an awful game.

Consider that Wazzu has lost its eight conference games by an average score of 55-8. That Washington’s season total rushing yards (842) is less than what 42 individual players have rushed for (and two of those players are on the same team). That there are four teams in college football (Texas Tech, Tulsa, Houston, Oklahoma) with more offensive yards per game than UW and Wazzu COMBINED.

We’re looking at history, folks. It’s the “OJ-in-a-Bronco” kind of history, but it’s history.

So, here’s a little poll for y’all.
[poll=11]

Even people who aren’t into baseball at all are aware that the Seattle Mariners weren’t exactly looking like champs in their last season. In true sports club form, this meant that it was time for a new coach.

Today the M’s announced their new coach: Hood River, Oregon, native Don Wakamatsu who now becomes the fourteenth full-time manager for the Mariners and the first ever Asian American to manage a Major League ball team.

Wakamastu’s most recent past job was bench coach for the Oakland A’s; his career history includes a stint as catcher for the 1991 White Sox and six years of coaching in the American League West. He spent seven years as a player after four years of college ball and has coached since then. [For an excellent summary of his career check out this story by Doug Miller of MLB.com.]

Wakamatsu will be wearing number 16 on his uniform but hopes to turn the M’s into a number one team.

While perusing yesterday’s USA Today, I came across this item on the front page of the Sports section:

Seattle-Tampa draws lowest NFL rating

NBC’s Seattle Seahawks-Tampa Bay Buccaneers game ended up with the lowest national rating ever — 6.3% of U.S. households — for a prime-time broadcast network NFL game

So what milesone is next for our Seahawks?

The LG Action Sports Championships is an exciting three-day blend of action sports like skateboarding, BMX, inline skating and FMX and live bands, DJs, graffitti artists, a sponsors’ expo and more and it’s happening at the Key Arena on Halloween weekend from October 31 – November 2.

Get your thrills and chills watching some of the world’s top “extreme” athletes compete in this exclusively invitational event featuring both vert and street competitions. Some of the athletes expected to scheduled to compete include Jamie Bestwick, Sean Sexton, Bob Burnquist, Ryan Sheckler and a host of other hot names from the wheeled world. Each day features a music headliner, except Saturday which has two: Bremerton’s own MXPX in the afternoon and Pennywise at night; Friday’s headliner is The Game and Sunday’s is Hoobastank, a band much better than their name.

Single-day tickets and all-weekend passes are on sale already [lgactionsports], but two lucky Metblogs readers and their friends get to go for free. Two winners will receive a prize package containing two tickets to the three-day event, an event program, a t-shirt and a pair of Maxell DHP-II headphones.

All you have to do to enter to win is send your contact information in an e-mail to seattle.metblogs@gmail.com no later than noon on Monday, October 20th. Two lucky winners will be drawn from all entries and notified in plenty of time to make plans for the weekend. It should be tons of fun.

If I happen to be at the Seattle Center the same time there’s a high school football game, I might go watch it. I’ll listen to the reports about it on the television or radio and read about it in the newspapers or on the internet, but only when it’s convenient for me. Obviously, I’m not exactly a huge fan. However, I do know enough to know that we’ve got some really great football programs at high schools all around the Puget Sound.

Rivals.com conveniently just validated this knowledge for me with the release of their rankings of the top 100 high school football programs in the US. Unsurpisingly, the top ten teams came from schools in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, Georgia, and Mississippi, places where high school football is often just as serious and important as any pro sport, perhaps even more so. I think this makes the appearance of a couple Washington schools on the list all the more impressive because we don’t have such tradition here; our football players aren’t good because they have the whole community behind them at all times–our football players are just plain good.

Cracking the top 100 are Bellevue HS in Bellevue, of course, coming in at number 70 this week with a 5-0 record. If that’s not awesome enough for you, consider Issaquah’s Skyline HS: they’re ranked number 23, also with a 5-0 record propelled wins like their last one where they wiped out Garfield 35 – 2.

Guyle Fielder drops the ceremonial first puck at Key Arena, 10.04.08

Flags outside the Key Arena proudly proclaim its status as home of the Seattle SuperSonics and the Seattle Thunderbirds, even though one team has already left the city and the other will be moving its base to the new Kent Events Center at the end of the year. Even though the trip down to Kent will take significantly longer than the few minutes it takes me to get to the Key from my office or the few more it takes from my home, I’m very much looking forward to the move. It’ll be great to be watching hockey in a brand new facility whose managers are excited to provide a home for the team and its fans and I’ve been sure ever since I first heard about it that I won’t miss the Key at all. It surprised me, then, when I felt myself getting a little misty about walking in the door for the Thunderbirds’ final ever home opener there on Saturday night, but I guess years of countless hockey memories tied to that place made me feel nostalgic.

The pre-game ceremony honoring Guyle Fielder’s recent induction into the Washington State Sports Hall of Fame definitely added to the sentimental feeling. Fielder played hockey in the Western Hockey League for 21 years, 15 of which were spent in Seattle with the Seattle Bombers (1953-54), Seattle Americans (1955-57) and the Seattle Totems (1957-69) before his retirement in 1969. During his career, Fielder became the first pro player anywhere in hockey to score 100 points in a season and became the first professiona hockey player to score 2,000 points, ending his career with a total of 2,037. He was an astonishing 11-time All Star and won six MVP awards, helping his club to five WHL finals and three championships. Fielder stood at center ice to receive a plaque recognizing his induction and a special commemorative Seattle Thunderbirds jersey with his name across the back before dropping the ceremonial first puck to rousing applause from the fans appreciative of his contributions to Seattle hockey history.

Nostalgia was probably not so much a factor for the current hockey players on the ice. The nature of junior hockey, where players are graduated out of the system after turning 21, means that most of the current Thunderbirds players weren’t even born when the Tbirds moved to what was then the Seattle Coliseum, now the Key Arena, back in the 1988-89 season, long years after Guyle Fielder had retired from the sport. The current season has seen the young team struggle after losing many of the previous season’s highest scorers to their aging out of the system and signing with pro teams. Their first four games this season, all away, gave them four losses and zero points. Pride was at stake Saturday night and the team earned some of it back when Jeremy Boyer scored the first goal of the game at 14:59 in the first period.

The defending Memorial Cup champion Spokane Chiefs evened the score at 19:37 of the first with a goal by Drayton Bowman. Bowman scored again at 7:01 of the second period with a powerplay goal, unanswered until Boyer intercepted a pass behind the Spokane net and sent it to fellow Tbird Lindsay Nielsen who shot the puck into the net at 8:35 in the third period. The game ended in a tie that led to a scoreless overtime period and sent the game into a shootout. Seattle goalie Jacob DeSerres stopped Spokane’s Levko Koper, Brett Bartman, Steve Kuhn, and Stefan Ullman; Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski denied Seattle’s Jonathan Parker, Jim O’Brien, and Prab Rai before Jeremy Boyer sunk the game winning goal.

The Thunderbirds’ record now stands at 1-5-0-0. The team heads out on the road for games against the Everett Silvertips on October 10, the Portland WinterHawks on October 11, the Chilliwack Bruins on October 12 and the Tri-City Americans on October 17 before returning to Seattle for a home game against the Kelowna Rockets on October 18 at the Key Arena.