Seattle Sportsnet

It was one year ago today that Seattle Sportsnet was born. In the world of sports blogs and the internet, that’s a lifetime.

On the day I created this site, 11 months of pent-up emotion was released onto the world wide web after we, as fans, were forced to endure the worst year in the history of Seattle sports. You might have managed to repress the events of 2008, but thanks to our very first post you can hastily relive them. Thankfully, there are no pictures.

In just one year, the city of Seattle and its sports teams have managed to rebound quite nicely from the tragedy of ‘08.

The Husky basketball team returned to the NCAA Tournament.

The Mariners posted a winning season.

The Husky football team won a game, then went the extra mile by winning two more.

The Seahawks are…well, we’ll pass on the Seahawks for now.

There’s the Sounders FC, who kicked off their inaugural season by making the playoffs.

The University of Washington took home three national championships, thanks to the softball team, the women’s cross country team, and the men’s crew team.

And on top of all that, the Oklahoma City Thunder continue to do their part as one of the worst franchises in the NBA. That’s something we can all appreciate.

Through it all, we’ve done our very best to give you a fan’s perspective on the sports scene, be it locally or nationally. You, in turn, have responded in ever-increasing numbers to a greater degree than we ever could have imagined. We like to think of our fans as the best fans in the blogosphere. That sounds cheesy, and it is. But if the Mariners can believe they have the best fans in baseball, then we have just as much right to believe our fans are the best fans out there, too.

We’ve gone from a handful of readers on day one to hundreds of thousands of readers in the past 12 months.

Our work has been featured on numerous sports blogs and message boards, but also on more notable websites  such as SI.com, CBSSports.com, SeattleTimes.com, Oregonian.com, and Scout.com, to name a few.

In spite of all those achievements, our greatest pride and joy can be found here. That’s for all of Seattle to enjoy.

In the past year, we’ve accumulated some interesting stats that could rival the back of any baseball card. In true fashion, here are the Top 11 of a few of those stat lists.

Our Top 11 most-read posts of the past year:

1. Top 11: Sports Fans We Love To Hate

2. Top 11: Sports Fans We Love To Hate, Part II

3. Top 11: Pickup ballers we love to hate

4. 2009 Bigger Dance: Less Filling Region

5. It’s Dave Libbey’s world, we just live in it

6. Jake Heaps to BYU? Bad choice

7. 2009 Bigger Dance: Sweet 16

8. Nicole Zaloumis on maternity leave

9. Ladies of Seattle: Sportscaster Edition

10. More fun with the ASU photo album

11. Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado, the Second Coming of Jesus

Our Top 11 most-referred search terms of the past year

1. “marisa miller”

2. “nicole zaloumis”

3. “erin andrews”

4. “erin andrews nude”

5. “megan fox”

6. “taco”

7. “manatee”

8. “bigger dance”

9. “david beckham”

10. “alex rodriguez and kate hudson”

11. “dick fain” (I kid you not)

In the past year, we’ve learned a lot.

We’ve learned that people want as many pictures as you can cram into an article.

We’ve learned that people like tiny paragraphs and frown upon big words.

We’ve learned not to piss off basketball referees.

We’ve learned that insulting BYU is akin to kicking a puppy in front of a crowd of millions.

We’ve learned that there are many good Washington State University fans, but very few good Oregon fans.

We’ve learned that Seattle sports fans are absolute horndogs when it comes to Nicole Zaloumis.

We’ve learned to include the phrase “Erin Andrews” in as many posts as possible.

We’ve learned that the more pointless an article, the more enjoyed by the masses it becomes.

We’ve learned that people like lists. No, love lists. That only took us about a week to discover, hence the Top 11 was born.

We’ve learned that talking about people we love to hate is the most universally-uniting subject to discuss at any time.

We’ve learned that messing with sabermetricians is like setting fire to a box of Magic cards in the middle of a hobby shop.

Most of all, we’ve learned that we like this. We love this. We love writing for you.

Some might say we’re vain, but in reality we really love sports and we really love the city of Seattle.

We enjoy interacting with all of you, many of whom we have only begun to know in the past 365 days.

We enjoy hearing what you have to say, be it good or bad. Opinions are always welcome.

We enjoy the excitement around our teams. Ken Griffey Jr.’s return. Washington’s win over USC. The Seahawks’ selection of Aaron Curry.

We enjoy watching a city pick itself back up, dust itself off, and learn how to win again. We enjoy watching that transition.

We enjoy it all, and we owe it all to you.

To all of you who have been here with us since the very beginning, and to those of you who have just recently discovered us, thank you. On behalf of everyone who has contributed to Seattle Sportsnet, thanks for making our first year a great one.