Game 03. San Diego Seduction 8-14 Seattle Mist ShoWare Centre

Like excited school children the five of us fully grown men flashed our tickets at the staff and made our way straight past the black curtain into the arena. Tonight is the Seattle Mist’s inaugural game in this new league. All I was told was that it is a new professional female sport, where women play tackle football in their underwear! Sounds good right?

We pulled back the curtain and our testosterone levels shot up. Although our tickets were high up in the indoor arena we simply just stayed on “goal side” by the padded wall on the half way line (25 yard line).

The game had already started and we were all in shock that this was real and actually happening. 14 women graced the football astro turf and got into football formations, dressed only in skin tight lingerie, knee pads, lacrosse helmets and football shoulder pads, that are made smaller so the players’ cleavages were still visible...naturally.

The audience was about 90% men but the few women supporters were getting into the game. I looked up at the score line and it was already 8-0 to the Seattle Mist. The game is played out over two 15 minute halves on a 50 yard field, plus endzones, just like the Arena football league. The walls are padded and really needed to be because on their first play I saw the running got slammed into the boards. The crowd roared and I was in shock at how hard she got hit. It was a surreal image and beautiful image. It was as if Playboy themselves had created a sporting cocktail of football, ice hockey and female oil wrestling.

The girls subbed on the fly like in hockey and got straight into the action. I wouldn’t have liked those female football players to hit me as hard as they did tonight...then again maybe I would have?

It was a quick handoff and the running back bamboozled her way into the end zone. The away team looked annoyed with themselves and began blaming each other for their defensive woes. There was no point after kick. In fact there was no kicking at all. The home team made the one point conversion, via a two yard rush and went up 14-0. Possession changed hands several times and the players struggled to make passing plays, but their running game and tackling was very impressive. There were several hits that Ray Lewis would have been proud of.

14-0 took us into the half time break, when it dawned on me that this new league, is a perfect mixture of football and a wet dream as this is what football looks like in heaven! What’s impressive is just how much passion the players had, and they all clearly wanted to win. The $25 ticket is good value and the five us were all hoping for triple over time.

During the break the only two cheerleaders brought out five male fans who all competed in a dance off. It was here that I met one of Travis’s friend’s, Big Lo who is one of the all time great Seattle fans. Big Lo goes to EVERY Seattle sports games and is quite the celebrity up here in the North West.

The second half was just as explosive and I was impressed at just how quickly the players were getting up after some strong gang tackling. The San Diego Seduction got back in the game with a few catches and punched the ball into the endzone, but they couldn’t make the conversion. Though it was too little too late and the home team began to dominate in all areas, and although they couldn’t add to their score, they deserved to win. The winning team did two lap of honours high fiving as many fans as they could.

We were all in awe and shock at what we had witnessed. “Awesome” was the main word on everyone’s lips. Some may argue this was just half naked pretty women running around,(well yes it was), but from a sporting point of view both teams played hard, wanted to win and with that mentality any commitment it was pleasure to watch on both levels.

I am not totally sure just how far and for how long this new league could go. The lingerie bowl first started as an alternative football game during the Super Bowl and was a one off game. Now there are eight teams in two divisions who will continue to play until the end of January before they have their playoffs. If I was lucky enough to live in one of the cities that has an LFL team, I would be out buying my season tickets now!