Tag Archives: sports

The Summit hustlers: Weekly pool competition draws shot makers and neighbors to Capitol Hill pub

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By Matt Dowell

“Some fat ass cats show up here,” said Ronnie on a recent Wednesday night at the Summit Public House. He’s a regular at the pool table there and he’s been shooting pool on Capitol Hill since the ’90s.

Summit’s free-to-play table attracts good players on any night of the week. But for the last few years, a weekly Wednesday night tournament has become a center of the scene.

Show up around 7 PM on a Wednesday and you will see players warming up. A stack of cylindrical cue cases abuts the long bench at one end of the table. Competitors chalk up with focus, break racks with a whip crack heard around the bar. As Katy, the organizer, takes $10 buy-ins, she adds names to the bracket on a nearby TV screen.

It might look serious to an outsider, especially one who doesn’t play pool. But chat up a few people gathered around and you’ll quickly see there’s more to it than the game.

“They’re fat, but friendly cats,” Ronnie revised. “I like the competitiveness here, and the chill. Everybody’s friendly. Everybody polices themselves. You can come out here [to the patio between games] and smoke your cig, your doobie, your spliff.”

“It’s a good way to spend some time on a Wednesday night.”

Continue reading →

Sunday: Seattle Marathon 2024 winds way through Interlaken Park

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The pedestrian and bicycling-only curves of E Interlaken Blvd will be filled with thousands of runners, rollers, joggers, and don’t give up you can do it walkers as the Seattle Marathon passes across the north slope of Capitol Hill Sunday morning.

The Seattle Department of Transportation says there will be trail and street closures across the route including SR-99, the Burke-Gilman, and I-5 Express lanes. Streets should reopen by 2:30 PM. Be prepared for delays along 24th Ave E where the route crosses the artery.

The full marathon’s official start time is 7 AM. Many participants won’t arrive in Interlaken until noon.

Around 15,000 participants are expected across the day’s events including the half and full marathon. In 2023, there were more than 1.700 runners and walkers who finished. Times ranged up to 18 minutes per mile for the slowest having the most fun-est runners.

In 2019, marathon organizers re-routed the course away from Interlaken as part of moves needed to avoid light rail construction on the I-90 bridge and flatten the course. After the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 race, organizers finally restored the Interlaken portion of the run for the race’s 2022 edition.

Crowds gather on the northern fringes of Capitol Hill to mark mile 22.5 of the race with an annual final boost of cheering and enthusiasm.

More information on the race is at seattlemarathon.org.

 

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The closest public course to Capitol Hill is now the Bill Wright Golf Complex

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Wright

The closest Seattle public golf course to Capitol Hill has a new name. Seattle Parks officials announced that Jefferson Park Golf Course will now be known as the Bill Wright Golf Complex.

“Mr. Wright was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame in 2013,” the parks department announcement reads. “He was an original junior member and fixture of Fir State Golf Club and Jefferson Golf Course. He broke the color barrier of American Golf and will be appropriately honored at his home course, Bill Wright Golf Complex.”

The 52-acre Beacon Hill golf facility includes an 18-hole course, a 9-hole 3-par course, and a popular driving range and clubhouse. It is part of four public courses in the city including West Seattle, Interbay, and Jackson Park. The courses are currently operated by Premier Golf Centers under a long-term contract that has been up for renewal.

The renaming comes amid renewed pressures on the city-owned properties including Jackson Park Golf Course where neighbors are organizing to call for more community access to the facility. Continue reading →

Fleet Feet’s Capitol Hill closure brings 20 years of E Pine running retail to a finish

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Capitol Hill community runs will need a new pacesetter. Longtime running gear and shoe retailer Fleet Feet is leaving E Pine after 20 years of business and weekly “fun runs” across the neighborhood.

Sergey Voronkin who is now overseeing Fleet Feet in the Seattle market with operating partner and ultra runner Brian Morrison stepping aside, announced the closure of the Capitol Hill store he had been managing saying the decision “stemmed from Fleet Feet’s larger business strategy to provide an improved customer experience to the Seattle community.”

The Seattle stores part of the nationwide Fleet Feet franchise include a Ballard location which will remain open.

“Moving forward, we invite our Capitol Hill community to join us at our Ballard store, where you will continue to receive the same great personalized service, shop from a similar product assortment and be able to participate in community programs, runs and events,” Voronkin’s message to customers announcing the closure read.

Fleet Feet has been part of the Odd Fellows building along E Pine across from Cal Anderson Park since 2004 where it started as the Seattle Running Company. Continue reading →

Setting a ‘party pace,’ this group runs across Capitol Hill every Thursday

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By Paige Stanley/UW News Lab

Ready. Set. Go. Every Thursday night, Capitol Hill runners of all paces take off through Cal Anderson Park for a weekly group run featuring a 5k loop through Volunteer Park and a social hour at a neighborhood beer stop to follow.

This is not a race.

“When you know there’s a group of people who are going to meet regardless of the weather, it gives you an extra bonus to know … I am not going to run on my own,” Sergey Voronkin of the E Pine running shoe store Fleet Feet says. “When you have already been multiple times you’ve made a connection and friends, so this adds extra accountability and extra motivation.”

Voronkin, who works as the Inventory Manager at the Capitol Hill store, hosts the weekly runs. When he started leading the Fleet Feet runs in September, around a dozen runners would attend the pub runs. Now a pack of 50 to 60 runners rumble across the streets of Capitol Hill for the weekly run.

Fleet Feet is a national chain for runners with 260 stores across the country that has been part of Capitol Hill for years. In addition to selling running gear, Fleet Feet has training programs and running groups. A second Seattle Fleet Feet store is located in Ballard.

The Thursday Pub Run through the Capitol Hill neighborhood is one of the three weekly runs organized by the Capitol Hill store. While the Tuesday evening and Saturday morning runs are longer and generally ran at a faster pace, the Pub Runs follow a more casual “party pace.” Continue reading →

Fields damaged during Seattle freeze leave youth and recreational sports schedules a mess — UPDATE

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The many colored lines of the Washington Park field (Image: City of Seattle)

Several sports fields across Seattle are closed and in need of repairs after a sustained bout of freezing temperatures has caused damage to the synthetic turf. Seattle Parks says at least nine of the fields at its facilities have been reported damaged and the Seattle Public Schools system has closed all of its turf fields to “assess the severity and scope of the damage on their fields.”

“Unfortunately, this weekend with the extreme freezing weather, a number of SPR (Seattle Parks) and SPS (Seattle Public Schools) synthetic turf fields experienced buckling and damage underneath the turf, resulting in lumps, divots and craters in areas of the field that make them unplayable,” the statement from the city parks department read. Continue reading →

Seattle gets ball rolling on preparing city for its part in hosting the 2026 World Cup

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With the 2023 Women’s World Cup underway in Australia and New Zealand, Seattle is gearing up for its part in hosting the 2026 men’s tournament.

This week, the Seattle City Council approved legislation outlining the city’s responsibilities with the Seattle International Soccer Local Organizing Committee formed to bring the tournament to the city,

Seattle will be part of a unique three-country arrangement as Mexico, Canada, and the United States will share hosting responsibilities across 16 host cities. According to the council’s briefing on the plan from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office and first hatched under the Durkan administration, Seattle will likely host around four to six games in the 2026 tournament.

Under the terms of the agreement with FIFA, the local committee will be responsible for what could be a $10 million price tag to host the events with many of the costs hitting the city. Organizers say not to worry as most of those costs would either be recouped or recovered, the Seattle Times reported in 2018 as it did some cheerleading for the plan.

Continue reading →

With Seattle’s pickleball courts driving neighbors bananas, city will try new sound-reducing fence at Capitol Hill park

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By Soumya Gupta, CHS Intern

Seattle Parks is responding to surging noise complaints from neighbors around the city’s most popular pickleball courts including Capitol Hill’s Miller Playfield with plans for a new noise-blocking fence. But the department is also scrambling to do more to try to cut down noise from the pandemic-era past time.

While rigorous pickleball matches are happening on courts across the city, the complaints have been centered on three specific Seattle Parks facilities.

“The noise complaints have been coming in for about a year now,” a Seattle Parks and Recreation representative said. “They’re exclusively from neighbors of Miller, Magnolia and Laurelhurst parks.”

To take a swing at the problem, Seattle Parks has devised a noise-reduction project to maintain the status of pickleball in courts, while also doing more to help make sure the game is played within a certain disciplinary framework. Continue reading →

TaraShakti building new ski fashion brand and community with Shakti Shack pop-up on the slopes of Capitol Hill

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(Image: TaraShakti)

Clark and Ralkowski (Image: TaraShakti)

Another sports fashion brand with mountain-high aspirations from a neighborhood entrepreneur is starting with a pop-up on the slopes of Capitol Hill.

TaraShakti, launched last year by Capitol Hill resident Tara Clark, has set out to make a new space in ski fashion with a revival of the onesie, a look Clark says helps her skiers “build confidence, connection, and community.”

The new ski brand from Clark and co-founder Quan Ralkowski is making its first tracks this winter with a Shakti Shack pop-up in a former dry cleaners shop on 14th Ave neighboring Porchlight Coffee, and the NUE and Omega Ouzeri restaurants.

“Slip into a vintage inspired, high performance, expertly crafted suit and experience the magic. The feminine fit will hug you in all the right places,” TaraShakti promises. Continue reading →

Miller courts a popular center for pickleball’s growth in Seattle

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With a much-needed resurfacing and community-funded nets, the pickleball courts at Capitol Hill’s Miller Playfield are now some of the busiest venues of athletic competition in the city.

Seattle Parks says from 30 to 50 players compete for the two hours 10 AM to noon every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when the four pickleball-lined courts are reserved for free, open drop-in play.

Clubs and leagues that book up the courts the rest of the week keep them even busier. Continue reading →