Recently, during a home game against Phoenix, the Suns fans outnumbered Sonics fans. There were thousands of desert-orange T-shirts and replica jerseys in KeyArena.

"My only consolation," I said to my friend sitting beside me, "is that orange is a bad color on almost everybody."

But there was a pretty Suns fan sitting in front of us who looked great in orange. She loudly cheered for Steve Nash, the point guard from Victoria, BC.

"Hey," I asked her. "Are you Canadian?"

"Yes," she said. "Are you a Sonics fan?"

With all the tenderness and trepidation in her voice, she might as well have asked me if I had scrotum cancer.

"Last 12 years, I've seen about 300 Sonics game in person," I said.

"Do you think they're really going to Oklahoma?" she asked.

She wanted an honest answer. And for the first time, I honestly answer that particular question.

"Yes," I said. "They're gone."

She looked at my friend sitting beside me. He was a Sonics ball boy in their inaugural year of 1967.

"Yes," my friend said to her. "I think I'm watching my last Sonics game."

"I'm sorry," she said. She was lovely and compassionate. She understood our pain.

Thank you, O, thank you, Canada.