Seattle Supersonics Looking for reworking of Key Arena debt

According to an article posted On the Seattle Times Web Site dated March 16, 2005, the NBA Seattle Supersonics are asking for public support in the reworking of the debt remaining on the 1995 renovation of the former Seattle Center Coliseum into Key Arena. The Key Arena is the current home of the NBA Seattle Supersonics, the WNBA Seattle Storm, and the WHL Seattle Thunderbirds.

As much as would like to support this I can't help but to keep thinking of the decision made by former Sonics owner Barry Ackerley to not include potential NHL franchises when remodeling Key Arena into it's current state today.

In the very least, the powers that be in the Sonics organization could have hosted NHL pre-season games at a Key Arena configured for hockey. For example, the Sonics could have hosted a few pre-season games with the NHL Vancouver Canucks especially since there are a considerable number of Canucks (and NHL) Fans in the Greater Seattle/Tacoma area many of whom I know are Season Ticket owners (Full, Partial, and/or Ice Pak) or are fans of other teams that make the drive to Vancouver to see their teams play in person.

For those of you not familiar with Key Arena's configuration, I would recommend going to Ticketmaster's website and open up seating plans for the Sonics and Hockey. In the NBA configuration, seating is approximately 18K+ and for Hockey the seating is approximately 14K.

I can almost guarantee the taxpayers of Washington are sure as hell not going to pay for Barry Ackerley's lack of vision in not designing and implementing an arena that would have been able to hold more than just Basketball and Concerts. Not only that the taxpayers are going to have a tough time letting something like this pass through. As I see it, the lawmakers in Olympia have more important issues on their plate like solving the transportation issue(s), the budget crisis, the economy, blah, blah, blah.