CRAZ8

The Seahawks are down by 7, 1:30 left in the game, driving down the field when BANG. A large flash of light out the window and a small explosion, followed immediately by a clap of thunder!

Lightning hit the mast of a sailboat in the Kirkland marina, about 100 yards away, at our eye level. Now I’m awake!

Sadly, the Seahawks lose the game…

The Dallas Cowboys came to town on Saturday, August 12. For the second event in a row, we had to stop and wait 10 minutes for a train outside the stadium. A smart planner would have worked out this train thing on game day, but I guess getting caught in bad traffic is part of the event.

Our food and drink order seemed to work a little better this time around. I think there were a few issues, but not as bad as the first event. I believe Levy comped us for this event since their first event was so bad.

Again we had the only security person on the suite doors. The suite next to us – Club 9 – was completely empty, but unlocked. It didn’t take long for people to wander in and make themselves at home. Some of those people were from Club 10 – they just wanted better seats! Lisa had security move them on.

The Seahawks didn’t play too well for this one, but the crowd started out in mid-season form, so we all had a good time.

One of the advantages of a poor game (or a blow-out) is that the stadium empties out from the end of the third quarter onwards, making our exit much nicer.

This year, the Seahawks have put up a large framed photo of Matt holding up the George Halas trophy after the NFC championship game. It’s not clear to us who owns this – us or them? We also have a framed 12 jersey too.

Next up – the Raiders.

Our first event of the year for our suite was the Real Madrid game on August 9. For us, these tickets were complimentary – free, as in beer! This was probably a good thing, since the new regime at Quest Field was really not ready for this event.

The traffic sucked getting to the game – weekday evening games are just a bad idea when it comes to actually getting there – so we were the first to arrive in our suite. The door to all the suites were wide open, with no security outside. This is a problem for us, as we have personal items in our suite, and we expect to be able to keep these items secure. Last year, there was a security person on every pair of doors (and we still had something stolen during a game!).

Some of the food had been delivered, but it looked like the process had been abandoned by the suite attendant. It took another 90 minutes to get more of our food, and some of it was never delivered. It seems that Levy didn’t have enough staff hired for this event, and hadn’t re-assigned anyone to actually cover our suite. Dinarte got this changed pretty fast.

At one point during the game, two girls slipped into our suite and into the bathroom, locking themselves in. Finding someone from security was tricky, but we eventually got them out and handed over. They claimed ignorance, but were clearly too drunk to be safe.

Later, more people came in looking confused. This can easily be a tactic to see if there’s anything worth taking, and if anyone’s paying attention. We lost a purse during the Dallas game last year.

Dinarte made it clear to Levy and Patti (our Seahawks suite contact), that lack of security is a no-no, and we’ve had someone on our door for subsequent games. Only our suite seems to be getting this treatment, so stuff may be going missing in those suites.

Dinarte had ordered a birthday cake for one of his guests. He’d ordered chocolate frosting with raspberry filling. They delivered a completely different cake style, but they did spell the name right!

On the way out, we had the suite door locked behind us – again, not a standard procedure for club level suites.

There should be an access card entry system for each suite by the first game of the year – September 17 – but the cynic in me thinks it will take most of the year to get that system working.

The game itself? I’m not a big soccer fan, so it seemed a little slow most of the time, with only a few exciting parts.

This is the last year of our suite lease with the Seahawks. For this last year, I will be blogging about every event that we attend, and all the stuff that they give us over the year. This will both give people a view into the VIP experience that the NFL can offer, as well as provide a record for myself so I can remember the good times we had.

First, some background.

Back in 1999, I conviced Dinarte to go in with me to share a 10 person suite for the last year of the Kingdome. This was Mike Holmgren’s first year with the Seahawks, and this was a good way to get good seats. I’ll post about some of the things that I can remember from that first year during the quiet times.

In 2000, the Seahawks started selling suites in the yet-to-be-built stadium. They had a mock-up of a 24 seat suite in their office, and we quickly picked an 18 seat suite on the club level. We picked this for two reasons. Firstly, it was the only ‘small’ (less than 36 seats) suite that was close to the middle of the field, and secondly, there are concession stands outside, so we wouldn’t need to buy the food every week.

Map of the club level suites

For signing a five year lease and paying a deposit, the Seahawks took us to the next two superbowls – flights, hotels, transport, tickets. Dinarte and I went to Tampa to see the Ravens beat the Giants, and then Lisa and I went to New Orleans to watch the heavily favored Rams lose to the Patriots.

When the new stadium opened, we moved into our suite and watched the games for the next four years. We are now in our final year, let the games begin!

More information about the Seahawks suites

Every year in early August, the Seahawks host the suite owners to show them the food choices available for ordering in the suites for gameday. This year was the best so far.

Levy Restaurants is replacing Aramark in the entire stadium. It seems we weren’t the only ones unhappy with Aramark! Levy put on a good showing of food available, and introduced the team members we could be dealing with for various aspects of the service. Hopefully, they will be putting a lot of emphasis on the service this year.

The big difference for the event this year was the location. For the first time they held this inside the Seahawks locker room. This is quite a large room here’s more information about the space. They now have a large logo in the middle of the floor, roped off to stop us walking on it.

The route to the locker room was rather circuitous, as the club level is being remodelled, and the work needs to be done by next Wednesday for the Real Madrid soccer game.

The George Halas trophy was present in the middle of the room, with Corky taking photos of people with the trophy. Interestingly, Corky’s brother-in-law re-seeded our front lawn this year…

After the event, we picked up our tickets for the year, and a box containing the suite menu and a large bar of chocolate marked The Sweet Taste of Success

The first pre-season game is now just a week away – here comes Football!

Rich Eisen published an extract from an email I sent him for the second time.

Check it out

The Onion has an article about where the NFL disposes of the losers winning clothing.

African Child Loves His ‘World Champion Seahawks’ T-Shirt

Dave Krieg was at the pre-game party hosted by Prime Sport. Jeff and Doug have some pictures and got his autograph on their hats. Not many of the Seahawks fans recognized him, so he had a fairly quiet time at the party.

We were at a party on Saturday in the NFL HQ in downtown Detroit. We were 4 floors above the media center. KJR was broadcasting while we were there.

Due to the large number of people in the building, and the cold outside, there was condensation on the inside of th atrium roof that was dripping on them during the show. I’m sure they thought we were dropping beer on them.

I’ve heard Matt and other Seahawk players and staff say that the Seahawk fans are the best in the NFL. After seeing the Steeler fans on Sunday, they may be right.

The Steelers weren’t nasty or anything, in fact the ones I met were pretty good. As a group, they just didn’t seem to be football fans. They are Steeler fans, and the Steelers just happen to play football.

During the game, two things stood out:

• There were a lot of Steeler fans in the stadium
• They were very quiet until their team was up by 11 points.

When the Seahawks play at home, the fans cheer from the opening whistle, and on every defensive down (sometimes louder than others, but there’s always some noise). The Steelers weren’t even in the game on the first snap of the game!

They did get into the game toward the end, but even then, despite a huge numerical advantage, you could still talk to the people next to you. That would not be possible at Quest Field, and we were trying our best to make that happen in Ford Field.

In addition, they would cheer loudly when their offense was on the field. This didn’t matter too much, since they weren’t that loud.

We put so much effort into cheering our team on, we were exhausted at the end of the game. This was a first for us. The Steeler fans were well rested.

“It was like an away game for us, there’s no question about that,” quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. “But if there were 90 percent Steelers fans and 10 percent Seahawks fans, I thought the Seahawks fans were just as loud, if not louder at times.”

All of this was a surprise, because the same Steeler fans were far from quiet on the street before the game.

I saw a news report that described the Steeler fans as ‘thunderous’. I don’t think he was in the same building as me – perhaps he was in a nearby bar?