and camping out for tickets

Even the lines are more exciting

KEVIN HUDSON

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, more than two hours before the start of the Trail Blazers' season finale against the Denver Nuggets, a crowd was gathering outside the Rose Garden.

Ron Shapland and Brannon Winningham were among the first fans to arrive. The two friends, season ticket holders the past three seasons, said they have shown up this early for nearly every home game this season. They come early to socialize with other regulars, as everyone gets pumped up for the game.

The Blazers have returned to the playoffs for the first time since the 2002-03 season, but longtime fans like these say you have to go back further than that to find an equally enjoyable season.

Shapland, a 32-year-old Portland resident who has been attending games since age 4, said that the excitement is unique to this season, due to the youth of the team.

"(Success) was more expected in '90 or '91," when Clyde Drexler anchored title-contending teams, he said. "The excitement right now is better because no one expected this kind of growth this fast."

How about compared to the 1999 or 2000 seasons, when the Blazers made it to the Western Conference championship series?

"Let's not even go there," Winningham said. "We don't talk about that."

Shapland, who has been in a wheelchair since he was a child due to cerebral palsy, remembers well the heartbreak of the 2000 Western Conference finals. He was a Rose Garden guest attendant then and was in the building for home games, before the now infamous fourth-quarter meltdown the Blazers suffered in Los Angeles at the hands of the Lakers in Game 7.

"Life in a wheelchair? I can deal with that no problem," he said. "That loss hurt way worse."

Lined up nearby, Gary McLain, a 37-year-old fan from Gresham, said that this team, and the excitement around it, rivals any Blazer team he can remember.

"This team is beautiful," he said. "To me they're right there, next door, on the same court as any of our other teams, ever."

Across the courtyard, at the box office, another line has formed --the line for playoff tickets.

Though the coveted tickets didn't go on sale until noon Thursday, Jeannette French of Tacoma was first in a line of about 20 playoff ticket hopefuls.

French, born and raised in Portland, said she doesn't drive, so she was up and out the door at 5 a.m. Wednesday to catch public transportation to the Tacoma bus station. A Greyhound bus took her to downtown Portland where she jumped the light rail to the Rose Garden and was the first in line at noon Wednesday, just off the property between the Rose Garden and the Memorial Coliseum.

About 4 p.m., a Trail Blazers representative escorted her, and the handful of other fans who had started to gather, to a spot near the box office where the line began.

Considering how far this team has come in the eyes of its fans, French's trek for playoff tickets seemed fitting. She has been a Trail Blazers fan all of her life, she said, but this season feels special.

"I feel like it's been forever since I could feel like this about a Blazer team," she said. "I've always been a fan but I wasn't as proud as I am to cheer for these guys."

Dane Williams, a 25-year-old from Vancouver who is second in the playoff ticket line, offers this explanation: "This team reminds a lot of people of the Drexler teams because they're good guys," he said.

"When good guys win, that always gets the fans excited."