Memories for sale

SEATTLE – For a city accustomed to losing not just games, but teams, the Seattle Seahawks’ dominant Super Bowl win provided a long overdue catharsis, buoying the spirits of a fan base that hasn’t always had much to cheer about.

Fans poured into the Seahawks team store on Monday at CenturyLink Field to buy championship T-shirts and hats, parents made plans to pull their kids out of school for Wednesday’s parade, and staff at the Seattle Times donned aprons to help hawk some of the extra 106,000 copies printed with “Champs!” emblazoned on the front page.

“I spent a little bit of money this morning, but it’s priceless,” said Julie Keim, who bought 11 shirts at $28 apiece and 11 hats at $35 apiece for the staff at her maritime-training school in the north Seattle suburb of Edmonds. “There’s so many players to be proud of on this team.”

The Seahawks returned Monday evening to Sea-Tac Airport, with players exiting the plane to cheers.

The Seahawks’ 43-8 manhandling of the Denver Broncos on Sunday gave the city its first major men’s sports championship since the SuperSonics won the NBA title in 1979 – and helped erase some of the lingering bitterness over the Sonics’ 2008 departure for Oklahoma City, where the team was renamed the Thunder.

In fact, before Sunday, Seattle’s two major men’s professional championships were in sports in which the city no longer competes – hockey and basketball. The Seattle Metropolitans won the 1917 Stanley Cup before folding in 1924. In women’s pro sports, the Seattle Storm won the WNBA championship in 2004 and 2010.

Fans launched fireworks, blared horns and partied across the city as the final seconds of the Super Bowl ticked away. The celebration lasted into the night.

“I can’t make you understand what this means to me!” shouted lifelong Seattleite John Caro, who, with his wife Corina, both 59, whooped their way down Lake City Way in North Seattle and high-fived passersby. “We have waited so freakin’ long for this!”

Seattle’s sports history has been mostly sad. Aside from the SuperSonics’ relocation after 41 years, baseball’s Mariners – who started playing in 1977, seven years after the Pilots moved to Milwaukee – have been woeful, losing 101 games in 2008 and 2010, and 91 last year.

But there have been bright spots.

The Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl in 2005, where they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers amid complaints about the officiating that Seattle fans continue to voice.

In 1994, the SuperSonics had the best record in the NBA during the regular season then became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 8 seed in the opening round of the playoffs. Two years later, the Sonics couldn’t overcome the 72-win Bulls in the NBA finals.

The Mariners made the playoffs with a feel-good, late-season run in 1995, before losing to the New York Yankees. And in 2001, the home team tied a major league record with 116 regular-season wins but had no answer for the Yankees in the postseason.

Suggestions that the Seahawks’ win was the city’s first championship overall since 1979 struck a nerve among some in the city, including Storm president Karen Bryant, proud of her team’s two WNBA titles, who wondered about the reports on Twitter even as the Storm congratulated the Seahawks on the win.