Notebook: Sounders may think about shift to Starfire Complex

General manager Adrian Hanauer isn't ready to up and move his Seattle Sounders soccer club from Qwest Field to Tukwila's Starfire Sports Complex.

But he's willing to consider the idea.

After being dislodged from its third-year home of Qwest to accommodate CONCACAF Gold Cup matches last weekend, the Sounders tested the cozier confines of Starfire in a United Soccer Leagues First Division match against the Portland Timbers.

The result was positive all around for the test run at 2,500-seat Starfire, which overflowed to draw 3,204 fans for a 4-2 Sounders victory Friday. Will Hanauer have to make a difficult decision in choosing a home field for Seattle in 2006?

Was the energy better in the smaller facility?

"It was a great opportunity to test Starfire and see how a game felt there," said Hanauer, whose team already uses Starfire as its full-time training facility. "My impression was that it felt great. That's not to say I don't like Qwest, but because of the intimacy, I loved Starfire.

"It's the same reason I loved [Seattle's] Interbay Stadium and UW. Qwest has its strengths and Starfire has its strengths."

Hanauer said he wasn't thrilled when he learned the Sounders had to move.

"We were frustrated about accommodating the Gold Cup, but once it was clear that we were going to Starfire, then we tried to turn lemons into lemonade," Hanauer said. "Given it was a one-off game, it couldn't have gone any better."

There are plusses and minuses for the Sounders to play at the sometimes cavernous Qwest, which seats about 8,500 on the eastside lower bowl for Sounders games, and atmosphere-filled Starfire.

"We will absolutely look at the possibility of playing there," Hanauer said of Starfire. "As we do before every season, we'll go in with a clean slate. We put that game in the data bank to help make a decision for 2006. And we'll go sit down with people at Qwest like we do every year."

Hanauer, who also likes the idea of playing in the city at a world-class facility like Qwest, says any decision would be in the best interest of running the Sounders currently. Some soccer people would see a move to Starfire from Qwest as a step away from the goal of Seattle joining Major League Soccer someday.

Starfire CEO Chris Slatt said he would love to discuss the possibility of becoming the home stadium of the Sounders.

"If anybody wants to have a game for about 2,000 or 3,000 people, we'd like to talk to them about it," Slatt said. "I think it's the best place in town for that size of crowd. We would love to have further discussions with the Sounders to host their matches."

Note

• For the second consecutive season, the Sounders missed out on a prime opportunity to make the club extra cash in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Seattle followed last season's absence from the Cup with a 2-0 loss in Portland to the Timbers on Tuesday.

The loss kept the Sounders from hosting a lucrative fourth-round Open Cup match against the San Jose Earthquakes of the MLS. Instead, the Timbers entertain the Earthquakes on Aug. 3.

"It's a $30-, $40- or $50-thousand loss for us," said Bart Wiley, Sounders assistant general manager. "It's very disappointing, especially after we just thumped them."