Why are we in Canada?
Posted: Sunday August 16, 1998 01:06 PM
This is the 12th in a series of postcards Sports Ilustrated's Peter King
will e-mail from his annual training-camp tour. Like Friday's, this one is
from a preseason game: the San Francisco-Seattle American Bowl.
Aug. 15: Vancouver, British Columbia
TEAMS: San Francisco
49ers, Seattle
Seahawks.
SITE: B.C. Place, a dome. Need I say more? Stuffy, barely
half-filled, dirt-white Teflon ceiling, stuffy, hot, colorless. And did I
mention stuffy?
FOOD: Grim again. Greasy chicken, sticky rice, soft green beans,
multigrain roll, with cheap and watery coffee.
Dear NFL Junkie:
Why they play summer football in one of the prettiest cities on Earth in a
stuffy, domed stadium is beyond me.
Go outside, people!
I can understand why the place had 15,000 empty seats. They're not
football-crazy here anyway; the B.C. Lions are averaging just over 15,000 a
game. Tickets for this American Bowl were $23 to $62 Canadian (about $16 to
$41 American). The fans knew Jerry Rice and Warren Moon
weren't going to play. Steve Young played two series. I mean,
Brett Favre was in "There's Something About Mary" longer than Rice,
Moon and Young played here. The loudest noise of the night came late in the
third quarter, when the fans starting screaming "Mooooooooon!!!" after
every lousy John Friesz play. Then came a long "We want Moon!"
chant.
Tonight's observations:
1. Nobody in the NFC West will come within four games of the 49ers unless
two things happen: Kerry Collins is great, and the line that looked
pretty good tonight in front of Young collapses.
2. Seattle's special teams are really good. Kicker Todd Peterson's
a big threat in a dome, and Pete Rodriguez's guys fly around the
ball.
3. If Seattle's first-team defense came to play, I didn't see it.
4. If Jon Kitna's the quarterback of Seattle's future, after this
wobbly performance I'm not crazy about its future. (Unfair, I know, after
watching the guy for two quarters. But he doesn't throw line drives.)
5. It might be 34 years old, but the best stadium song going is "Twist and
Shout", which was blasted in the fourth quarter here. (Sorry to all you
"Cotton-Eye Joe" fans.)
6. I always thought Chuck Levy would be better in the NFL than a
run-of-the-mill returner, but I guess that's what he is.
7. The Backstreet Boys might have sung the worst and most tedious
National Anthem in sports history before the game. No wonder my kids don't
like them.
8. Steve Mariucci has a great approach to preseason games. Namely,
he doesn't give a whit about them, other than to get his starters some
quality scrimmaging and to ferret out the last few spots on the roster by
what happens in the last could-of quarters.
9. Can I make one non-game-related observation? The Hall of Fame Old
Timers' Committee meets in Canton this week to discuss its 1999 nominee,
and I'm pulling hard for Mick Tinglehoff, the Vikings center who
played more games in succession than any offensive player in history and
made more All-Pro teams, seven, than any center in history.
10. Seattle left tackle Walter Jones is going to be a bear. What
leverage and what great feet.
That's it from the great north.
Talk to you in a couple of days from the great south—San
Diego. —P.K.
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