Super Bowl XLIII: The Lesser of Two Evils?

This Sunday's Super Bowl will pair two teams we sort of hate, with one from Arizona, so it kind of reminds us of last year's Republican ticket. Photo courtesy of theprint from the Seattlest Flickr Pool.

Spitfire is impressive to people who are mesmerized by flat screens, not unlike birds by shiny objects. Initially we felt disdain for the vulgar abundance of screens but eventually got sucked in ourselves. There’s just too much to ignore. The problem with Spitfire is it’s a blank slate. You would never know it was here, the only thing in the place that says "Seattle" is the liquor license. No "Hawk fan12" sports radio placards, no Sue Bird bobble head, nada. Disloyal like nearby Sport, but even worse because there was no discernible sports memorabilia anything--not even Boston crap--just a few sports-oriented paintings that look like they belong in Jay Buhner’s billiards room.

A few weeks ago a contingent of Charger "loyalists" turned the joint into the Phillip Rivers fan club for a couple hours as San Diego performed it’s annual post-season implosion. This Sunday it’s hard to guess whether Spitfire will be a temporary Steelers bar--or a Cardinals bar, surely a first for that franchise here.

Arizona is almost a West Coast team and we’re closer to them than Pittsburgh so it makes sense the place could swing that way, but Pittsburgh is a more popular team to root for; they have tradition and enjoy frequent blowjobs in the national media by the usual on-air personalities. Normally Pittsburgh types wouldn’t be able to show any support in a city they recently stole a horrible Super Bowl from, but this is Seattle, where almost nobody is really from Seattle anymore so you can get away with obnoxious displays of Steelers loyalty.

We’ve seen it twice this week, compared to zero visual accounts of Cardinals flair in the 206, so as of right now the early math suggests neutral downtown sports bars will be carrying more Pittsburgh yellow than Cardinal red. Of course there is the potential for a mixed showing, in which case things would obviously have to be settled with fists and broken pint glasses. If that's the case, we'll give the nod to Pittsburgh--if only because the rust belt seems angrier and folks from Arizona have too much sun and border paranoia on their hands to get fired up enough to beat some laid-off steel worker's meathead kid in a Seattle sports bar. Prove us wrong, Arizona.