Wild cheers, high-fives and alternating chants of “Sea-Hawks! Sea-Hawks!” are all part of the game at CenturyLink Field. In Everett, one venue offers Seahawks fans of all ages the next best thing.
“Fans like it, they think the team can hear them,” said Curt Shriner, manager of the Historic Everett Theatre. “They get those ‘Hawks’ chants going and are screaming at the refs, just like at a game.”
Since last season’s run-up to the Super Bowl, the restored theater at 2911 Colby Ave. has been showing TV broadcasts of select Seahawks games on its 25-foot movie screen. The theater can’t show all games because the space is used Sundays by Destiny Life Church.
Its biggest football crowd was for last year’s Super Bowl, when the free viewing packed the place. Since then, Shriner said fans have come for several nationally broadcast Seahawks games.
Saturday’s 5:15 p.m. playoff game against the Carolina Panthers will be a different experience at the theater, where music fans are invited to watch the game. Rather than the usual free Seahawks showing, theater doors will open at 4:15 p.m. Saturday for those with tickets to a concert scheduled for later that evening. Before the Heart by Heart show at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, people coming to see the Heart tribute band may also see the game and a halftime concert preview.
Last month’s scheduled Heart by Heart show was canceled. “The lead singer couldn’t sing, so we rescheduled for the 10th. Then the Seahawks schedule came out,” said Shriner, whose brother, Craig Shriner, acquired the Historic Everett Theatre last March.
Curt Shriner, of Everett, was an Everett Theatre Society board member before the ownership change. “We were looking for money-making ideas, and I had the idea of showing Seahawks games.”
He said the NFL doesn’t allow other entities to charge for showing games. Tickets are for the concert. Other venues also make money through concession sales. For Saturday’s game, a $12 meal catered by Everett’s Craving Cajun Grill will be available to those who order one in advance.
Dr. Katherine Runyon, a pediatrician at The Everett Clinic, saw the Seahawks trounce the Arizona Cardinals 35-6 on the Historic Everett Theatre’s big screen Dec. 21. It was a first for Runyon and her 27-year-old son, Zak Nelson. Her husband, Carl Nelson, isn’t a football fan, and Runyon has often watched games solo at their Lake Stevens home.
“It was really fun,” Runyon said of seeing the Hawks in the 114-year-old theater. “It has the fun of a bar — people screaming and yelling — but not the bar atmosphere, and no smoking.”
The crowd at the December game was small, but included Seahawks fans of all ages, she said. “Zak and I would definitely do this again,” said Runyon, who grew up in St. Louis and has memories of going to St. Louis Cardinals games.
Shriner said the theater is one of the few all-ages venues for watching games on a big screen. “You can’t take the kids to a bar. People bring their families,” he said.
Last Super Bowl Sunday, he said, about 350 people packed the theater. Everett’s Pamela Seaman was one of them.
“What I liked, it was such a cross section of the community,” she said. Upstairs were big family groups and downstairs were older people. The Super Bowl crowd included men from the Everett Gospel Mission’s shelter, Seaman said.
“At the very beginning, when the Broncos came out, it sounded like maybe five or six voices cheering. I was so appreciative that nobody yelled at them,” she said.
A group of teenage boys was giving high-fives to the entire row behind them, she recalled.
“I was there by myself and just felt completely comfortable. It was one of the best community experiences I’d had,” Seaman said. “If they’re in the Super Bowl again, I’m going to the theater.”
The Historic Everett Theatre will show the Seattle Seahawks-Carolina Panthers NFC playoff game at 5:15 p.m. Saturday to ticket holders for the Heart by Heart concert, scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Saturday at the theater, 2911 Colby Ave. Concert tickets $15; event all-ages. Craving Cajun Grill dinner available for $12 more (to reserve a meal, call 425-258-6766 by 4:30 p.m. Friday). Tickets: www.historiceveretttheatre.org or call 425-258-6766.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
