Inasmuch as I’ve ever been an actual fan of a non-Philadelphia team, I have been a fan of the Seattle Sonics for the past three years.

By “actual fan” I mean that my sensitive little sports feelings would get lightly bruised when they lost; wins had a decent shot of putting me in a vaguely good mood. I had random nicknames for the players and complicated opinions about both backup centers and the complete roster of timeout/ halftime entertainments. A buddy invited me into his season-ticket plan when I moved out there, and as a new guy in an unfamiliar city, I was happy to spend a fair amount of time at Key Arena (it didn’t hurt that it was mile from my house and that the tickets were extremely reasonably priced). I got into the Supes.

(That’s the last photo I took at Key Arena, a few days before I moved from Seattle to New York earlier this year. The Supes got absolutely smoked by the Nuggets. Lost by 42 (138-96). At home. I’d say it was a metaphor/ omen/ only fitting, but even that would be a bit much.)

Full disclosure: I’ve been writing about the Sonics on the Interwebs for almost as long as I’ve been writing about the Birds.  No kidding.  For the 2006-2007 season I tried to write something about every game I attended.  I also took a bunch of photos at games (don’t worry, I had implied oral consent from the NBA).

This is all a long way of rationalizing going off-topic and bringing my Sonics Haterade to BountyBowl.  I know it isn’t really relevant, but I feel like I owe it to the Sonics fans in Seattle to use my powers of Negadelphia for good and devote a few words to WHY THE SONICS LEAVING SEATTLE WAS AN EFFING FRAUD AND WHY I WANT TO PUT A BOUNTY ON CLAY BENNETT, HOWARD SCHULTZ, GREG NICKELS AND DAVID STERN. (Read the rest of this story.)