Seattle Storm One Win Away From Championships
Only one game stands between the Seattle Storm and the WNBA title. The Storm will play Atlanta on Thursday, capping off a tremendous season for professional sports in Seattle.
The Storm's outstanding year and contention for the championship makes it all the more puzzling that the media has largely been silent on the topic. Last weekend, the Seattle Times splashed the Huskies game all over the front page, but the Storm got no love.
Such a fickle media! The Storm stuck around with Seattle after the Sonics left. Were in fact rescued from the terrible fate of life in Oklahoma by a group of fans; businesswomen with season tickets and the financial clout to keep the Storm in Seattle. Formerly connected to the Sonics as a "sister team," the sale allowed the team to stand on its own.
This isn't entirely surprising, given the passion the Storm inspire in their fans. They have sold out the Key Arena over and over, and Seattle Times reporter Steve Kelley said of the atmosphere in Key Arena during Tuesday's game that "They made this new/old barn shake in a way it hasn't since 2005."
Kelley later echoes the common sentiment that "The game has grown and deserves better exposure than this series is getting."
It's the elephant in the room. The bummer no one wants to talk about, for fear of being labeled a wet blanket (or worse). For all too many people, the WNBA is the punch line to a joke. Like, literally. Last week I spotted the following gem posted to an online forum:
Q. Wanna hear a feminist joke?
A. WNBA.
I don't think I've ever heard the WNBA mentioned on television (aside from sports programs) when it wasn't the butt of a joke. (Obligatory Family Guy reference.)
Naturally, most of the people who mock the WNBA have not, by their own admission, ever seen a game. Nor do they bother to make a distinction between one team and another.
Soccer fans are long accustomed to the media and mainstream culture giving their favored sport a big ol' "Meh." In the case of soccer, a lot of the prejudice has often struck me as being coded racism. Soccer is, after all, very popular in countries - okay, continents - okay, the entire rest of the planet - where people don't speak English. (You know; like Scotland. I don't know what they speak in Scotland, but it isnae English.)
And yet, most of the WNBA critics are self-proclaimed basketball fans. They should know better. Imagine the outrage if someone attended a game of (say) the Minnesota Timberwolves, then proceeded to paint the entirety of the NBA with what they saw there.
The WNBA has good teams and bad, exciting games and dull, just like the NBA. If someone likes basketball, then what's not to like about a Seattle Storm game? Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but it is the exact same game.
But you know how it is. Haters gonna hate. For the rest of us, Thursday's game starts at 5PM sharp. Don't miss it!
Photo credit: Aaron Last/Storm Photos