It was a little less than five months ago when hockey fans looked at each other in bewilderment and asked, “What do we do with our time now?”
The sport that many said would never take hold in Everett had captured the attention and enthusiasm of so many people for so many months. Not even the prospect of summer could dull the disappointment of saying goodbye to the much-anticipated season.
The withdrawal has come to an end.
The Silvertips are back in play and the first home game of the season is Friday. Once again, fans will spill out of the Everett Events Center on any given night and crowd the sidewalks cheering and ringing cowbells. They’ll pile into their cars and fill the downtown streets with a sea of lights and honking.
But the Events Center has hardly been dormant since the Silvertips last played there. The building has become exactly what local leaders worked so hard to convince people it would be: a community gathering place. A great place to see a concert, the circus, Disney on Ice, rodeos and the Wiggles.
The building on the corner of Hewitt and Broadway has played host to everything from children’s birthday parties at the community ice rink to awards banquets, card shows and fund-raisers in the formal ballroom.
And it has been only one year – almost to the day – that the eager and the skeptical got their first peek inside the state-of-the-art facility. Since then so much has changed in this county. We have new political leaders at the city and county levels and business people are pursuing grand ventures in this area, including revamping and building hotels, setting up companies and colleges and pursuing the prospect of an auto racing facility in the county.
While some of these projects, specifically the racetrack, have been met with resistance, it is encouraging to see Snohomish County take advantage of great opportunities to pursue bold business opportunities. The Everett Events Center helped spark this change in direction, and plenty of local leaders, past and present, deserve credit for seizing these opportunities and seeing the projects to fruition.
Things can change drastically in one year. A sport that practically nobody around here knew anything about became an addiction. And a building that some people said would sit empty brought together people from all corners of the county.
That’s not a bad way to celebrate your first birthday.
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