My adventures in Portland - Game 5 edition

I meant to post this earlier, but I have just been swamped the last 24 hours. Anyway, I live in Vancouver, Canada, which is about a six hours drive to Portland. Myself and three friends of mine went down to Portland on Tuesday to catch game 5 (we paid $145 USD each for $25 USD upper bowl tickets!! wtf), and here is what went down (other than the Rockets losing the game ). This was our first time watching the Houston Rockets play in person, and for my friends, the first NBA game since the Vancouver Grizzlies got shipped off to Memphis eight or nine years ago (I caught a Blazers-Mavs game in Portland some years ago when my school basketball team went to Oregon to play against American high schools).

The first Rockets-related event that happened to us was running into one of the players while shopping. About five hours before tip-off, we were at Pioneer Place in downtown Portland when a tallish lone figure walked by us. "Dude, that's VON WAFER!" We quickly doubled back and caught up with him and asked him to take pictures with us:



We wished him luck for the night's game and we went along our separate ways. For anyone who is curious, those are Louis Vuitton and True Religion bags that he's carrying.

About half an hour before tip-off, we made our way to the Rose Garden. My friends were being chickens but I put on a Yao jersey way before walking into the arena. The Blazers jersey to Rockets jersey ratio was about 10000:1. Here's a picture of me in a sea of Blazers fans:



I would like to note that, at this point before the game, I didn't receive any flak from the local fans. Maybe a few stares, but no trash-talking. As we made our way to our seats, we were stopped by a local TV crew and when they found out we came all the way from Vancouver to cheer for the Rockets, they decided to give us an interview. I have no clue whether it ended up being aired. Here's a picture:



As we sat down at our seats, some guy behind me said "You can't sit here with that jersey on." So began a long night of insults and snide remarks from the locals. One guy walked by and yelled "Nice jersey boys, city pride!!", obviously assuming us to be from Portland and city traitors. Luckily, the guy who sat down beside us was very polite and nice to us. He had been a season ticket holder for over 30 years (every since the Bill Walton championship era) and he shared some Blazers history with us. He also opined that Greg Oden will be better than Kevin Durant in a few years. Now that's a homer statement if I ever heard one. Here's a picture as players got set to tip off:



Well, we all know what happened during the game. Depite being in hostile territory, my friends and I cheered loudly and enthusiastically for the Rockets. I even gave a shot at booing the Portland free throw shooters even though I was way up in level 3. As the game went along, we spotted at least two other groups of Rockets fans donning Houston jerseys. I've got to give the Portland fans credit, they are LOUD. Everyone in the arena was really into it, at the expense of my eardrums. Now I see why Rose Garden is a tough place to play for any team.

Anyway, after the game was over, we shuffled out of the arena. Now the trash-talking was rampant and nasty. All the locals were riding high on emotion and I got razzed pretty badly as I opted to keep my Yao jersey on. I heard stuff like "Go home Yao Ming!" "F--- Yao!" "Yao sucks!" and my personal favorite, from a middle-aged lady: "Ew, ew, kick him out! Kick him out!" Later, my friends and I grabbed a bite at a nearby Mexican restaurant/bar full of Blazers fans celebrating the victory. As we were walking out of the door, I yelled "GO ROCKETS!!" and then booked it. Probably not the bravest thing to do in that situation, but I did want to go home in one piece.

Other than the blight of the Rockets loss, it was a pretty decent trip overall. The shopping in Portland is great (no tax!!). Anyway, I feel pretty confident that we're going to close them out tonight. We had that last game until the refs completely took away our momentum. GO ROCKETSSSSS!!!!!!!!

 

I actually used a website called Coast to Coast Tickets. On hindsight, we probably could have got them cheaper off the Blazers NBA site. Oh well, at least the tickets were real!