Right before the Minnesota Lynx tipped off their first WNBA game in Portland in 24 years on Aug. 12, I noticed just the tiniest of lumps in my throat. This isn’t a totally rare occurrence for me. Even in the dog days of August, deep into the season’s tour-de-force, the shear magic of basketball occupies my mind for at least a moment.
This one felt just a little bit different for reasons both personal and professional. Personally, I was a Portland Trail Blazers public relations intern during the 2011-12 season. I spent every single Blazers home game of that lockout-shortened-but-still-long season in that arena putting together game notes, making copies of game notes, correcting inevitable errors in those game notes, making copies of the corrected game notes … rinse, and repeat.
Basketball was my first childhood love. I’d love to say writing was my second, but I think specifically speaking, writing about basketball was my second childhood love. Getting paid (minimum wage, but still) to do both of those things in an NBA arena felt like winning the lottery. Sure, the writing part of it called for mostly mundane sentences about Raymond Felton’s assist-to-turnover ratio, but I didn’t have to squint too hard to see that gig as a step in the right direction towards opportunities that allowed for more creativity.
Being back in that arena and seeing my name printed on a gameday placard that I used to print and stick onto respective seats made for a fun little detail.
WNBA in Portland is Back
Professionally, holy shit the WNBA back in Portland is absolutely a home run. That’s not a hot take. It’s not new information either. The Fire are almost certainly not going to make it back-to-back seasons with an expansion team in the WNBA playoffs, but the city, the fans, the Fire Pit, all embody the good, grand and exciting things happening in women’s sports right now.
I don’t want to take away from anyone’s anger at all the bullshit things happening right now. Did you know, in the last month alone, Fox News has talked about the WNBA so much that if you watched all of their WNBA segments sequentially it would take you longer to get through it than it would the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy Extended Edition?! Yup, it would. And spoiler alert: the quality of that coverage is significantly worse than LOTR. It sucks and I’m heartbroken for those who are most affected by the grifters and bad actors trying to infiltrate what was a safe space for so many.
But, I’m equally hopeful about a W franchise that folded coming back in the manner it has. A course correction two-and-a-half decades in the making is still a course correction.
“Especially Portland, I mean Portland was really supported back then,” Cheryl Reeve said when asked about how special it is to be back in Portland before the game on Aug. 12. “It wasn’t a case at that time that it wasn’t supported. I think what happened to a lot of W teams, was more what was happening with their NBA teams and a, ‘we’ve got to clean up the books to take care of something else,’ that generally wasn’t because of a lack of support. Portland was supported. You know, had someone like Jackie Stiles, who I coached against in college. A great coach like Linda Hargrove. They did great things and the community really supported them.
So, I’m happy that they were awarded a team because they certainly supported it when it was here and obviously I’ll find out again first hand-here soon just a reminder of how tremendous their fan base is.”
Atmosphere in Portland
The crowd was tremendous all night and nearly powered the Fire towards the most tremendous comeback in WNBA history. Even before the game started, the Fire Pit gave Minnesota’s starting five the most appreciative ovation I’ve ever seen an away team greeted with. Kayla McBride was introduced first, and sure, she’s coming off an all-time record-breaking performance, and yes, there were tons of Lynx fans there as well. But I’m being honest when I say every single person in the arena cheered. And they did so for Napheesa Collier, Courtney Williams, Natasha Howard and Olivia Miles. It felt like a cosmic reminder of the simple fact that basketball is fun and cool. Moments when all of us under one roof together collectively reflect that truth are also fun and cool.
I saw Fire shirts all over town the few days I was there. I had lunch at the famous Sports Bra hours before the game. There were some Lynx fans there. There were some locals there. The vibes were immaculate. I got to meet owner of The Sports Bra, Jenny Nguyen, at the game for a quick halftime chat.Nguyen rules and I am so happy that she and her staff are one of many groups of people committed to bringing more spaces for women’s sports into the world.
The vibes would have been less than immaculate had Portland actually pulled off the biggest comeback in WNBA history and made me sit in the losing team’s postgame presser. Reeve, Collier and McBride weren’t exactly beaming the way they were a few days prior after the magical day against the Dallas Wings at Target Center. But as they say, a win is a win is a win.
Portland is a beautiful WNBA market that promises to keep providing experiences like this to fans for years to come. I’m grateful it is. I’m grateful there’s a team playing there again just a stone’s throw away from Mount Hood National Forest. And I’m grateful for the reminder of this week to not miss that forest through the trees.
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