Coolest Experience in Sports
The Sounders hold an annual event each year to conclude their preseason. They host a fellow MLS team at Qwest Field in a match in which the proceeds benefit local and community partners and charities. Last year I only heard about it, but yesterday I went to the 2011 Community Shield game against the Colorado Rapids.
It was a great game. The Sounders won 3-1, we scored on a set piece (which has always been a weakness for them), and Fredy Montero scored twice and had an assist. But what I want to focus on with this post isn’t the game. It’s the very much talked about atmosphere at Qwest Field.
Now I have been to Sounders games before; I was at the first playoff game in franchise history against the Houston Dynamo and also a regular season game against the Columbus Crew. But yesterday’s game showed me something that probably tops my list of awesome things in sports (and I have seen a lot).
The Emerald City Supporters in their home at Qwest Field, The Brougham End
In the pre-game presentation, as the flags are being rolled out, the red carpet is being laid, the colors are being streamed, and other such visual additions, all that plays over the loud-speaker is an almost ominous or portent guitar note in exaggerated. One note, held out. Then beginning in the Brougham End, the home of the Emerald City Supporters, two drum beats sound. following the drum the crowd give one clap and a loud, quick yell. This continues very slowly and eventually speeds up to the climax as the players walk out and the single clap gets fast enough to transform into applause.
It was eerie. A stadium known for the die-hard, loud, volume of crazed fanatics was silent. On command the crowd would join together, but in between the yells and claps there is nothing.
I played sports for a long time. I played in tournaments and invitationals, went to playoffs and the like. But I have never been so fired up than I was sitting in the crowd during this pre-game tradition.
Now if that can happen with only 7,000+ fans for a preseason game, I can hardly imagine how intense and awesome this is during a regular season game when a packed house of 35,000+ join in.
