9.20.2005

Aquilini's Air Ball

The NBA's New Orleans Hornets have agreed in principle to temporarily relocate to Oklahoma City. After aggresively lobbying the NBA to bring the team to Vancouver, Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini has been left fuming at the end of the bench. Outside of Aquilini's imagination (and Provnice hack Tony Gallagher's), did Vancouver really have any chance of returning to the NBA? In the reports that led up to the OKC announcement, no media outlet outside the 604 even mentioned Vancouver as a contender.

For the record, this page had season tickets to the Vancouver Grizzlies, and makes it to a Sonics game or two. I was one of the 13,000-14,000 who, according to the hockey-centric local media, weren't showing up to support a team which at best won about 20 games in a season, a loyalty-to-futility ration seldom matched in professional sports. A lot of people would love to see the NBA return here. However, basketball fans in Vancouver weren't that enthused about Aquilini's bid this time around. It could be his enthusiasm to swoop in and take away another city's team rubbed us in a Bill Laurie/Michael Heisley sort of way.
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1 comment:

Don said...

You and I have both spent many an entertaining cheering on some of the worst sports teams any two men could hope to have a history of cheering for. Who could forget our years at pre-Flutie, pre-Pitts Stamps games - Wallace-and-Stadlering our way through another two-down-and-punt drive? Or the seventh-inning stretch at early Cannons games: "It's root, root rott for the Cannons, if they don't win it's the same..."

Even if we're cheering for different teams these days, I think you and I share the same distaste for the carpetbagging teams. I still miss my Houston Oilers, and haven't watched an NFL game seriously in a decade. But having said all of that, I don't think playing temporary host to a team that's lost its building while the primary fanbase is distracted with rebuilding their homes, businesses, and lives is quite the same thing. Ultimately, I suspect the decision had less to do with any judgement of Vancouer as an NBA town, and much to do with OK's geographical proximity to Louisiana.

10:13 PM

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