If the SaberCats win the Arena Bowl today...

Goodsie, are you trying to make us feel bad?

 

That would suck. It does look like the SaberCats are winning quite handily right now, but I would hope they would be the third as far as the media is concerned (unless you count the 1995 roller hockey championship).

What would be even worse is if the Sharks won the Stanley Cup and the SaberCats, the CyberRays and the Quakes got pushed completely aside.

 

Ahh, the cry of the American soccer fan.

I have to admit. As I watched the 2nd half of the game today I kept waiting to hear that from the announcers myself, but alas it never happened. I guess there's hope yet!

 

I saw Joe Cannon at the Arena Bowl today.

I couldn't hear much of the announcements with all the screaming.

 

Damn Sabercats. Shoot.

 

Saw that the Sabercats drew 16K+ for the Arena Bowl (or whatever they call it). I guess San Jose is just an arena football kind of town.

 

Goodsie, check out Ann Killion's front-page article today. She's being facetious, but she calls the Cats the best championship team the Bay Area's ever had (well, they were the most dominant).

Later, she refers to SJ as capital of second-tier sports. And, while that comment hurts, it really shows what people who aren't rabid fans feel about the MLS. Probably wouldn't hurt if MLS wasn't run like a Mickey Mouse second-tier operation...

The Sabercats usually get even less than the Quakes, around 6-7K for regular season games. Quakes also got around 16K for a playoff v. Miami last year.

Now, if you said we're a frontrunner kind of town...

Up yours, pal.

Sincerely,
Sharks Season Ticket Holder

 

The TV announcers said the Sabercats avg 14k this season. I wasn't buyin it.



Congrats to the Sabercats!



PS- Where is the [R]???

 

IMHO, most dominant was the SaberCats, at least within the context of their own league. They only lost one game all year (and then in ArenaBowl thrashed the team that beat them in the regular season), and they scored over 50 points in every game. The championship game win was the most lopsided ever.

But I guess it's all perspective, because succeeding in the NFL is much more difficult, and the '84 Niners were great. However, if I remember correctly, even though the Niners were that damn good and the Super Bowl was a "home game" (at Stanford) a LOT of pundits picked Miami because of the year Marino had. At that time, I was in the midwest in the Army, not around the big local Niner vibe, and I collected lots of money from people in my platoon, most of whom picked the Fins.

After that, I'm thinking the '92 Sharks.

Total lie. They don't even open the upper deck any more, and the lower bowl, which usually seems about half full at best, does NOT hold 14K (whole arena holds under 18K). During the season, there was mention in the Merc about how SaberCats or the Arena management were shocked with the low average attendance when they were such a good team. I remember reading it and thinking, "Talk to Johnny Moore."

Then again, there also weren't 16K at the Arena yesterday. LOTS of empty seats, even in the end zones of the lower bowl.

 

Oops. An article the week leading up to Arena Bowl stated they averaged over 13K this season. I stand corrected, and I guess they didn't lie yesterday, l_d_b. What I had read was talking about the past couple seasons before this one.


So, yes, we must be an Arena Football kind of town.

 

Haha! Stuck my foot in it again!

Sorry, I'm a Canadiens fan--but some of my best friends are Sharks fans. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Didn't mean any offense.

 

I saw the Arena in the playoff game.....there were alot of lower bowl empty seats. I've been there when there were 14,000 ant the lower bowl is full..... weird.

 

Hmmmm...perhaps our incompetent, number-inflating ex-GM is working for them.

I put quotes around "14,000" in your post. Even full, no way do 14,000 fit into the lower bowl, even if it is much larger than the upper deck. A Sharks sellout in the 2002 playoffs (every home playoff game) was 18,007.

 

Goodsport! My Man!

Following the Niner's mighty 1984 schellacking of the stinking Miami Dolphins my then girlfriend and I agreed to get married. (I was trying to put off the proposal until Valentines day, but she pushed the issue.) By the way, I turned 26 later that same year. It's funny, but I'm still not nearly as old as you!


Oh, and I wrote yet another, useless, wasted nasty gram to the stinking evil SJ Murky News. What a bunch of self-flagellating hypocrits!

Oh well. I'm leaving the Bay Area, and will have to root long distance in the future. I'll try to make it down from Portland for the occassional match (Opening day, playoffs and so on). On the upside, I won't have to read the stinking Murk anymore and the cost of living is a lot less. (We'll be in Vancouver, Washington, for those who care about the details.)

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

1) KNBR's Bruce McGowan referred to San Jose as the "City of Champions" in giving the SaberCats their due, citing both the Earthquakes MLS Cup and the CyberRays inaugural Founders Cup (even though their reign as Miss America has come to an end).

2) The SaberCats claim they sell all their tickets (no giveaways), whether through corporate sponsorships or whathaveyou...and that's the "attendance" number they announce, not actual turnstile counts.

3) For a "sold out" crowd there sure were a lot of rally towels hanging over the backs of empty seats in the lower bowl yesterday.

Earthquakes soccer, the last bastian of honesty.

 

Considering how the books have been doctored in the past, it's probably the first, not the last, bastion.

 

The similarities between the '84 49ers and the '02 SaberCats are uncanny...

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Uhhhh, I'm not a big football fan but you are comparing perhaps the greatest team of all time led by the greatest player of all time to a bunch of minor leaguers playing by stupid rules created by a marketing major.