Seattle SPORTs Now 2/17/26

 

While still euphoric over the Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory, Seattle sports fans had more reasons to celebrate this weekend as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver left little doubt that Seattle and Las Vegas will be the next two cities to receive NBA expansion teams.

Speaking at the league All-Star game in Inglewood, Cal., Silver said the league would be talking about expansion at their March meeting and that would open the door for approval from other owners sometime in the summer. Most importantly, Seattle and Las Vegas were the cities specifically mentioned.

As far as what the league has to talk about, the first question would be who will be the owners of the new teams and certainly they would have to pay an expansion fee to join the league.

David Bonderman was a co-founder of the Seattle Kraken along with Jerry Bruckheimer, and also a minority owner of the Boston Celtics. There was speculation that Bonderman would be involved in bringing an NBA back to Seattle- and the new team would likely be called the Sonics- but Bonderman passed away in December 2024.

His daughter, Samantha Holloway is listed as a primary owner of the Kraken and represents the team in league affairs. It’ll be interesting to see if there are any Kraken connections in the new Sonics’ ownership group. The Celtics were always looked upon as a second tenant at the old Boston Garden. The Boston Bruins were their landlords leading the great Celtic coach and GM Red Auerbach to grumble, ``outside of Boston, everybody thinks the Bruins are UCLA.’’

ESPN basketball analyst Brian Windhorn says one of the things NBA owners discuss at their meetings are the state of some of their arenas. This shouldn’t be a problem with the refurbished Climate Pledge Arena here in Seattle, although the Portland Trail Blazers, who would be Seattle-s geographic rivals, are looking at a $600 million renovation of the 30-year-old Moda Center.

Meanwhile on the ice

The Team USA Women’s Hockey Team may have been a favorite heading into the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, but USA has been downright dominant. Team USA defeated Sweden yesterday, 5-0, to advance to Thursday’s Gold Medal game.

USA faces arch-rival Canada, Thursday morning, approximately 11 AM on NBC. Canada, with five gold medals in their history, had a surprisingly close game with Switzerland, posting a 2-1 victory thanks to two goals from their captain Marie Philip Poulin, who was injured earlier in the tournament. USA and Canada met in the qualifying round last week, with Team USA winning 5-0.

Shutouts have been nothing new for the Americans. After beating the Czech Republic in the opener, the Americans have blanked Finland 5-0, Switzerland 8-0, Canada 5-0, Italy 6-0, and Sweden, 4-0. Since the Czech’s second-period goal in the opener, USA has gone 331 minutes and 23 seconds without allowing a goal- an Olympic record.

For local fans, the Seattle Torrent have been well-represented on Team USA. Along with captain Hillary Knight, who paced the 2022 team with six goals and four assists; USA (and Torrent) alternate captain Alexandra Carpenter has three goals and three assists in the current Olympics. Carpenter has 11 goals overall in three Olympic appearances. Hannah Bilka, the Torrent from Texas, scored the first two goals in Team USA’s win over Canada, and Cayla Barnes, recorded her first Olympic goal to start things against Sweden.

Prior to the Olympics, USA swept Canada in a four-game `Rivalry Series’ tourney, In Olympic competition, the USA victory last week marked the first team that they’ve led Canada by more than three goals in an Olympic game.

Since women’s hockey has been part of the Winter Olympics, the teams have met in the Gold Medal finals seven times with Canada holding a 5-2 lead. The only time those countries haven’t met in the gold medal round was 2006 when the Americans were eliminated in the silver medal round by Sweden. Team USA did win the very first women’s hockey gold medal when they defeated Canada in 1998.

The only complaint that Team USA women’s hockey fans seemed to have was why were the Tkachuk brothers being interviewed in the stands during the game. Probably a legitimate complaint unless NBC interviews women’s players during the men’s games. Not likely.