Before every Portland Trail Blazers' home game at the Rose Garden Arena, the Game Ball Delivery takes place. Members of the Blazers' Stunt Team head for the selected seating section, basketball in hand. Once it's been announced to one and all where the lucky fans sit, the spotlight brightens their faces, and the ball is handed to someone in the top row of that section, and the passing of the ball begins, from fan to fan, row to row, on its way from the top of the arena to the basketball court.
Since the Game Ball Delivery starts in the upper bowl, a member of the stunt team follows an aiming ritual before carefully dropping the ball to another member of the team waiting below. In that way the ball continues on until the last member of the stunt team involved in the delivery gets the ball and hands it off to a pre-selected youngster who is escorted to center court where the referee awaits.
I usually watch the delivery for a few minutes and then pay attention to the warm up activity down on the court. However on this night, since the section was right beside mine, I decided to take a few photos with my zoom lens. I particularly liked it when the man in the white shirt got the little boy involved. Imagine my surprise when I downloaded the photos and saw the expression on the woman's face there to the left of the top photo. Why she looked so shocked to see that little boy with the ball, I'll never understand. And how about her expression compared to that man holding the beer, the one who, to me, favors Hugh Jackman? Maybe she's saying, "Watch out! That little boy might toss the ball over here and knock your beer out of your hand!" And the man hasn't yet had time to react to what she's saying. We'll never know, but I do like the photo as part of this collage.
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