Herewith, some screen snaps of highlights (as if you’ve not already seen them) from the Seahawks’ incredible demolition of the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, winning the team its first-ever trip to the Sooper Bowl.

It was easily the most important single sporting event ever held in Seattle. (The Sonics’ 1979 championship was won on the road. So, of course, were all the UW football team’s bowl-game victories. The Mariners’ 1995 and 2001 triumphs were really the accumulations of many single-game victories.)

And, of course, it led to the biggest outdoor party Seattle’s seen since the riotous Fat Tuesday of 2001. This time, though, all went apparently smoothly in the ol’ P-Square. Good raucous fun was had by all. (More on this in my next post.)

P-I sportswriter Art Thiel claims this year’s Hawks, and particularly Sunday’s victory, represent a new era in Seattle history. Thiel posits the city’s onetime reputation for “the Scandahoovian trait of reticence,” modest casual fashion, tree-hugging, grunge’s ironic self-deprecation, and rain jokes has now and forever been superceded by a new confidence, an assertive new swagger, an instinct for unhinged joy.

I, as you might expect, am not so sure.

Seattle’s always been defined by great dreams and big schemes. That’s why it became the PNW’s dominant city, even though Portland had a head start and Tacoma had the railroad barons’ blessing. Boeing and Microsoft established their respective world dominations through slick deal-making and aggressive business tactics. Seattle’s infamous “politeness” is, at its best, a quiet businesslike confidence. And that’s exactly what the Seahawks have shown on the field this season.

The Hawks played like a smooth, well-choreographed troupe. And at its greatest moment of triumph to date, the team merely responded with the joy of boyish innocence. That’s what makes these guys so loveable.

More on this later.

Even many jaded Seattle bohemians, the kind of guys who snootily disdain all pro team sports in America (especially football), are tonight expressing joyous anticipation over the Seahawks’ potential Super Bowl-qualifying game Sunday afternoon. Bars that never show sports are bringing in TVs to show this game.

In the larger scheme of things, a pro sports championship doesn’t mean much. The Hawks’ success thus far has meant an upturn in ratings for KCPQ and KIRO-AM, and an upturn in revenue for many of the local bars that had been facing uncertain post-smoking futures.

But there’s something less tangible at work here.

Amid a miserably wet winter, in a city that’s been battered by economic stagnation, in a nation still withering under the iron thumb of a frat-bully junta, the Hawks’ spectacular game play and (with a few exceptions) great sportsmanship have brought at least symbolic hope to thousands. Yes: We can succeed, even triumph, against all odds and despite all the naysayers. With talent and teamwork and attitude, we can get it done.

…watching the Seahawks’ glorious playoff victory at Cafe Racer (nee Lucky Dog) on Roosevelt.

The back room held 13 women and only one other man at the game’s start; three other males showed up by the second half. Apparently, Racer’s boss, my ol’ pal Kurt Geissel, had successfully made it the game-viewing site of choice for U District lesbians. These lovely, loving ladies were all good, attentive fans. Football, beer, and lesbians–what more could a blue-blooded, blue-state straight male want?

…the “civil war” football game between Oregon and Oregon State. Eugene, this evening, is one of those places where the fog’s so thick you can’t see the end of Ringo’s nose. At times, the Fox Sports Net images are like washed-out watercolors of battling athletes. It’s a thing of beauty, uglified only by the U of O’s new Nike-designed “industrial” jerseys.

Leilani Lanes, one of only three remaining bowling facilities in Seattle north of Spokane Street, will be razed for an apartment complex in March. That’s not my idea of progress…

…for that glorious only-in-Seattle institution, the hydroplane races. (Other cities host the boats, but no other city loves ’em as much.)

As I’d predicted for several years now, the Miss Budweiser team’s dissolution has meant a far more level playing field for the other boats. Of the eleven official entrants, at least six had a reasonable chance of winning the whole thang. It’s so good to see a sport “dominated” by such sponsors as Llumar Window Film, Lakeridge Paving, and E-Lam Plus (whatever the heck that is).

And kudos to KIRO for airing the whole event in HD, or at least in upconverted widescreen.

BAT NIGHT returned to Safeco Field this past Tuesday. Thanks to that paradisical attitude sometimes derided as “Seattle Nice,” no fan-given bats were used to incite riots after the Ms snatched defeat from the jaws of victory yet again.

WE MUST SAY GOODBYE to Seattle Art Supply, most recently of Western Avenue, which had kept local image-makers outfitted with X-Acto blades, rubber cement, framing mattes, and paint brushes since 1892. It promises to resurface as an online-only retailer sometime later this year.

The giant posterized face of Rashard Lewis peers down at Sonics fans, prior to the start of what would be the team’s last game of the postseason, as if to apologize for the debilitating foot injury that kept him out of the second-round series.

The team fought mightily and valiantly. But without one of its pivotal star players, the Sonics found themselves ousted by San Antonio at the last half-second of game six.

But look on the bright side: Nobody expected this Seattle team to even make the playoffs, let alone almost make the conference finals. And the Lucking Fakers aren’t even in the dance this year!

This story takes place on a Sunday afternoon at a certain decidedly non-touristy Irish pub somewhere in the greater downtown zone. (I won’t name it, because I don’t want ’em to get into any potential trouble for continuing to serve visibly intoxicated patrons.)

On a large-screen TV, the injury-plagued Sonics were somehow clobbering the San Antonio Spurs, to even up their current playoff series at two games apiece (only to fall behind again in Game Five two nights later.)

The spectacle inside the bar, in front of the screen, was even more captivating.

The first thing you’d notice, had you been there, would have been the two very young, very thin, very drunk women, whooping and hollering and flirting with everyone in sight. One wore a Mariners cap; the other wore a Red Sox cap. They’d apparently been on a girls’-day-out at Safeco Field. I say “apparently” because, while they both talked at quantity and with volume, what they said didn’t always make sense.

Among their favorite flirting targets was a tall, lanky young man seated at the bar, clad in a sweatshirt and a backwards Seattle University cap. He spoke with well-practiced Eminem-esque body language and a fake-gangsta “wigger” accent. But the musical-legend references he uttered were not in praise of hiphop royalty but the Beatles and Stones.

Over the course of our very public chat, he mentioned to me and to the drunk women that he’d been faithful to his current girlfriend fora year and a half, a commitment he hadn’t previously thought himself capable of. He also listed a series of drug possession and dealing arrests he’d undergone between the ages of 11 and 18; now, at 24, he was proud to be out of trouble and planned to stay that way.

I observed all this, mostly silently, interjecting these three with questions only at strategic intervals. I was behaving as I often do, emerging into the public sphere only to hide inside my own mind (with the aid of a book and a Sunday crossword page).

Someone seated next to me was even more withdrawn. She was making no eye contact with anyone, except when she needed another drink. She concentrated on the careful penmanship she was applying to a hardbound journal, into which she’d spent the past hour writing (as she later mentioned) about an on-the-rocks relationship.

She broke the ice with me, asking how my puzzle-solving was coming along, and sympathizing with me about that one stubborn corner. But the gangsta wannabe was more adept about opening her up. I returned from a restroom break to find him and her deep in conversation. His voice had changed, the bombastic bravado replaced by a sensitive near-whisper. He insisted to the journal writer that she could make a living as a poet, which she countered with the time-worn adage that it just couldn’t be done. He told her she shouldn’t let her soul be held hostage by any loser boyfriend.

As their conversation became more intimate, I redirected my attention toward the basketball game. About 45 minutes later, the poetess stumbled her way off of her bar stool and around me and the other patrons. She’d previously done as great a job of hiding her state of inebriation as she’d done of guarding her feelings. The white-gangsta dude did his best to keep her from falling down. I asked him to make sure she got home OK; he assured me he would.

After those two left, the thin drunk women (who’d left the bar in the company of an older man and had since come back) reasserted their command on the other bar patrons’ collective attention. They made big, loud, repetitive comments about the joys of chicken wings with Miller Lite. Somehow, I ceased caring.

…but I believe I must agree with Steve Kelley: The Sonics’ miracle season has crashed amid spectacular injuries and general burnout.

…when I’m glad I’m not in the food and beverage service industry. This would be one of them. One of the four or five great amateur drinking days of the year, kicked off by a TV sports doubleheader involving both of our state’s two chances for college-basketball supremacy. The mind reels at the possibilities…

I just got my first check from my father’s life insurance policy, which means I can placate my creditors for a little while. I’m in line for a couple of potentially mid-paying jobs. And there’s women’s curling on CBC today! Life is good.

The National Hockey League’s team owners have canceled the whole season, having failed to make the players’ association give in on salary caps and other issues. Puck-and-stick fans will now have to find new pursuits, such as knitting, drinking, and watching Degrassi High reruns.

…there was sanity in baseball again, the Damn Yankees try to get Randy Johnson. Now more than ever: Rooting for the Yankees is as un-rebellious and un-heroic as rooting for Microsoft.

…to move baseball’s Montreal Expos to Washington DC? Might not happen after all.