Thursday, October 18th 2012, 6:30 pm
Oklahoma City Thunder fans lined the street at Memorial and the Creek Turnpike, Thursday, to show their support for the team.
The Thunder's first stop is in Bixby for the Blue-White scrimmage.
The Thunder is in Green Country as a show of support for the Tulsa 66ers and all of the fans here in the northeast part of the state.
Lunchtime at Savastano's, Thursday, brought the usual crowd.
The Chicago style eatery is just a free throw away from the SpiritBank Event Center, the place where Thunder fans will be focused Thursday night.
"Yeah, it's going to be pretty exciting seeing Durant out there playing, it's going to be a fun night out there," said owner Frank Savastano.
Savastano said concerts and games at the event center always bring a crowd, but he expects Thursday night to be special.
"Well, we're hoping for a good pre-game crowd coming in and hopefully some coming after, too," he said.
Inside the arena, the floor is ready, decked out with Thunder blue and the OKC logo.
All 3,700 seats are accounted for and SpiritBank Event Center officials say brining the Thunder to Bixby is a big-time accomplishment.
"It's not every day that you get to support these kinds of events, having the 66ers back in town playing at the Spirit Bank Event Center is a large part of that and we're glad to be able to bring an event like this to the Bixby and south Tulsa community," said Kellen Seitz, with the SpiritBank Event Center.
Thunder fan Shirley Graham said, "They're going to show their blue, their white, their orange—we love them."
Graham will be among the crowd in Bixby.
She said she's thrilled the state's biggest professional sports team will be spending two days on this side of the state.
"I am so excited, because the Thunder is the total state team," Graham said. "It doesn't matter if you bleed orange or red or whatever, everybody bleeds blue, the Thunder blue. It's a whole state team."
The Thunder organization agrees.
They said that while the jersey says Oklahoma City, the Thunder belongs to the entire state.
"We absolutely feel that way and, like I said, the support here in the Tulsa area has been incredible, so we get out here as much as we can, absolutely," said John Leach, with the OKC Thunder.
The Thunder is playing a pre-season game Friday night at the BOK Center, against the Phoenix Suns.
It is also sold out.
October 18th, 2012
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