Champs!
Four months ago, I moved from San Francisco to the Netherlands. It is a choice that I have not regretted in the least, except for today at around 2:30AM when, just after halftime in the first ever Game 7 of the WNBA Finals, my body gave up and I fell asleep.
When I crashed, the Valkyries were down by 6. When I woke up, they were WNBA Champs.
First things first, I have to make this all about me: I really, really need to thank the Valkyries for not making me look like a fool in my family group chat.
That’s right, the Golden State Valkyries followed in the footsteps of their 2010 baseball cousins and became Champs on my birthday (local time, obviously).
Okay. Enough about me. What did I miss in that half that clearly made all the difference?
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Two words: Gabby Williams.
In the half that I watched, Gabby Williams scored two points. In the half that people in the States watched, Gabby Williams scored twenty-eight points — truly the performance of a Finals MVP.
And let’s not forget Natalie Nakase, who has to be in contention for best coach in the WNBA right now. She took an expansion team to the playoffs in itsfirst year, and then turned that expansion team into WNBA Champs in its second year.
I really do wish I could comment more on what actually happened in the game, especially since the game I watched was considerably different from the game in the second half. In the game I watched, the Valkyries couldn’t hit a three to save their lives, while Allisha Gray and Jordin Canada walked all over them (and Gray did it with a pretty bad hand injury). Based on the highlights, the game everyone else watched was dominated by Gabby Williams (with some major rebound help from Kiah Stokes and Veronica Burton, and a very solid game from Tiff Hayes).
What I can comment on is how awesome the fans were. Watching the highlights, I could barely hear the commentators above the sound of the fans at Ballhalla. I also saw the pictures from outside of Chase; what better way to spend Halloween than packed together with a few hundred of your new best friends as your team wins it all at home?
Speaking of Halloween, my parents couldn’t watch the game because they don’t have Peacock, so they instead went to check out the local trick-or-treating scene. Their descriptions of the scene reminded me a little of my personal experience of Game 4 of the 2010 World Series — in both cases, people decorated their houses to commemorate both Halloween and the game (mostly skeletons in jerseys, but hey, whatever works); adults were more likely to be sporting a Giants/Valkyries shirt than a costume; and most importantly for parents required to take their kids trick-or-treating (or young mega-fans who want the best of both worlds), people had their TVs angled towards the street so people could keep track of the score/watch for a minute before moving on. My parents even sent me a picture of an extremely neighborly soul who mounted a TV outside their house so people could watch as much of the game as they wanted.
So in short, happy birthday to me and more importantly, congrats to the Golden State Valkyries.
If you’re in the Bay and want to keep celebrating, the parade is on Wednesday (Nov 4) at noon. It starts at the Ferry Building, goes along the waterfront, and ends right above the ballpark.
