This brief entry in the Arena Football League shared Portland, Oregon’s 19,000-seat Rose Garden arena with the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers. Largely undistinguished in competition, the Dragons did help to jumpstart the NFL career of wide receiver Oronde Gadsden, who went on to a solid 6-year stint with the Miami Dolphins after excelling in Portland.
The short-lived Portland Thunder franchise was the second go round for the Arena Football League in Portland, Oregon. The Thunder followed on the heels of the Portland Forest Dragons, who played in the same Rose Garden/Moda Center arena from 1997 to 1999.
The Portland Fire were perhaps the least distinguished of all Women’s National Basketball Association franchises. The Fire never had a winning season and folded after only three seasons. Only one other WNBA franchise, the Miami Sol, has had such a short lifespan. When billionaire Microsoft co-founder and Portland Trailblazers NBA owner Paul Allen bailed out on the WNBA after three seasons in 2002, no new buyer stepped forward and the Fire went out of business.
The Portland Pride played in all five seasons of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, a summertime league that had heavy investment from NBA owners. Although the Pride shared Memorial Coliseum and later the Rose Garden arena with the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers, they did not share common ownership as many CISL teams in NBA cities did. The Pride had only one winning season – their first, in 1993 – and never made it beyond the first round of the CISL playoffs.
This box lacrosse promotion played four seasons at Portland’s Rose Garden Arena between 2006 and 2009. On the carpet, the club’s high point was a hard-fought 2008 National Lacrosse League championship game loss to the Buffalo Bandits. Off the field, the LumberJax captured a few headlines for the marriage of team owner Angela Batinovich to player Adam Bysouth following the 2007 season.
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