Way over budget and needing an extra year, the Seattle hockey plan nevertheless passed a major milestone Tuesday. The NHL said, “You’re in.”
Author: Art Thiel
Art Thiel
Never having met a metaphor he could not twist beyond recognition, Art has been illuminating, agitating, amusing and annoying Puget Sound sports readers for a long time. Along with Steve Rudman, he co-founded Sports Press Northwest because it didnt seem right that the Google monster should aggregate daily journalism into oblivion without at least a flesh wound from somebody. Thiel and Rudman labored under the Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe until the print edition died an undeserved death in March, 2009. Art continued on at its online successor seattlepi.com while working on SPNWs creation. His radio commentaries can be heard Friday and Saturday mornings and Friday afternoon on KPLU-FM 88.9. In 2003 he wrote the definitive book about the Seattle Mariners, Out of Left Field, which became a regional bestseller. In 2009, along with Rudman and KJR 950 afternoon host Mike Gastineau, Thiel authored The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a cross between historylink.org and Mad Magazine that has become mandatory reading for any sports fan who has an indoor bathroom. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University as well as two dead papers and a live one, the News Tribune of Tacoma, he has become a fan of entrepreneurial online journalism because it allows him to continue a lifelong passion to take the English language to places it rarely visits willingly, and does not involve the cleaning of kennels or stables.
It’s hard to believe that a team with four playoff seasons in 41 has anything to “step back” from. It’s that sour history that makes tanking so incredible here.
D.J. Fluker will be out a few games with a hamstring strain, but Pete Carroll is upbeat about his replacement, Jordan Simmons.
Richard Sherman is a friend, mentor and idol to many Seahawks, so while the 43-16 beatdown of the 49ers was a delight, the reunion was a little awkward.
Traditionalists are firing up their RVs — Big 10 Conference champion Ohio State vs. Pac-12 Conference in Pasadena at 2 p.m. New Year’s Day in the Rose Bowl. Let the caravan shortly begin heading south on I-5.
A Pac-12 season of mediocrity and controversy fittingly had some of both in its championship. But since the Huskies won 10-3 over Utah, they don’t have to care.
Coming after the Apple Cup and before the big bowl games, the Pac-12 championship game — no offense to Washington or Utah — is kinda bleah.
Offering a self-described “love-fest” for Richard Sherman, Pete Carroll had no choice. Can you imagine what it would be like for the coach if the 49ers won?
The Apple Cup loss may have dropped the Cougars out of an at-large bid to New Year’s Six bowl. They are 13th in the CFP rankings, two spots behind the Huskies.
In the Seahawks’ stunner at Carolina, RB Chris Carson and WR David Moore, 7th-round picks, each made a play that spilled food and drink across the Northwest.