“The Red Card Wedding, Marcus Hahhneman chugging a beer – the legend of Starfire and the Open Cup goes way, way back,” smiled Andrew Thomas, the young goalkeeper who’s spent the last two years penning his own chapter in the little stadium’s lore.
For those not aware, we’ll clarify. The Red Card Wedding was a Fourth Rounder in 2015 against archrivals Portland Timbers, famous for a frenzy of cards that culminated in Clint Dempsey ripping up the ref’s notebook in an infamous act of dissent that earned the USMNT legend a two-year ban from the Open Cup. Marcus Hahnemann Chugging a Beer is exactly what it sounds like – the beloved goalkeeper, in his last season for his hometown club, was inspired against those same Timbers and, after the game, made an even trade of his jersey for a fan’s full pint of beer. And down it went after a salute to the crowd.
Starfire, that’s the 4000-seat stadium where the Sounders, four-time winners of our Open Cup, play their early round games each year. It’s also where the Tacoma Defiance, the Sounders MLS NEXT Pro (Div. III) affiliate play their games. It’s south of the city, on the banks of the Green River in Tukwila, Washington. Its thickets of Ponderosa and Lodgepole Pine and the ground’s cozy dimensions have combined, through the years, to make a kind of Cup Magic Potion for the Sounders.
This year, with the Defiance playing in the Open Cup for the first time since a lone debut appearance in 2015, it’s conjuring similar magic. And no one knows more about it than Thomas, the goalkeeper who led the way in three straight wins in last year’s run to the Semis with the Sounders and is now lining up with a young Defiance outfit in this year’s Cup to impart knowledge, leadership and a signature ferocity.
“It’s a small field,” said the 26-year-old Thomas, who looks a little like Robin Hood with slicked blonde locks and trimmed mustache, and who plays with the kind of high-volume intensity well suited to the knockout chaos of the Open Cup. “You always know it’s going to be hectic here – it’s just a few thousand fans, but you can really feel them. They let you know they’re there.”
Starfire Glories of 2024 and 2025
The energy at Starfire-Sounders games is special. The fans who’d make the trip down I-5 aren’t tourists, or your day-trip picnickers. They’re the hard-liners – the ones who honor the history of a club born long ago among the flared sideburns and no-shinguard abandon of the NASL of the 1970s.
Before a move to MLS in 2009, humble Starfire was the Sounders’ home when they played in the Division II USL Championship. And it’s been the home of the Defiance, who are benefitting from its cozy confines and wild energy in this year’s Open Cup, since starting life in 2015.
