If you’ve been inside the KeyBank Club at JELD-WEN Field during a Timbers game, you might have stabbed a few pretzels into a giant, jersey-wearing voodoo doll doughnut ... or maybe you smashed it with your fist. It’s all part of the club’s collaboration with iconic Portland doughnut purveyor, Voodoo Doughnut, to send a little bad cosmic mojo to the team’s next opponent through what’s called “Hex the Next.”
Photo: Craig Mitchelldyer
A hex is born
Through a series of meetings between the Timbers and the big wigs at Voodoo Doughnut, the pair arrived at what seems to be a natural fit. “It kind of popped up. We have these voodoo dolls, why not hex the next team? Hex the Next just kind of flopped out of our mouth,” said Cat Daddy, co-owner of Voodoo Doughnut. “It just totally works. It’s getting everybody excited for the next game and reminds everybody who the Timbers are playing next.”
Why partner with the Timbers?
Already a Portland landmark visited by hungry hordes of tourists and locals alike each day, Cat Daddy (pictured right) said that the excitement that comes with soccer in the city and local pride played a big part in teaming up with the Timbers. “We’re big sports fans anyway. It’s a popular sport worldwide, it’s getting bigger and bigger and we just love being a part of the fun of it,” Cat Daddy said. “We’re fiercely proud of Portland and anything that Portland can make happen, whether it’s a sports team or an event.”
A favorite hex
It shouldn’t come as a surprise which team the crew at Voodoo Doughnut loves to hex the most — Seattle Sounders FC. “(Co-owner) Tres (Shannon) and I have stated plainly that we don’t like Seattle. Any team from Seattle we’re going to root against,” Cat Daddy said. “That, and the pretty boy down in LA (David Beckham).”
Don’t dare eat the doll
Voodoo Doughnut provides plenty of normal-size, complimentary doughnuts for consumption in the KeyBank Club, but just don’t try and take a bite out of the supersize centerpiece. “Hopefully, by the time the club level is done, it’s got 200 pretzels in it and maybe a punch or two,” Cat Daddy said of the doughnut that takes about an hour to complete from frying to frosting on the opponent’s jersey and is a collaborative effort between the staff. “It shouldn’t be eaten because of all the evil inside as well. You’ve generated all this hate into the next team, you don’t want to ingest that mojo.”
Be sure to pick up the latest edition of Green & White Magazine at the next home match at JELD-WEN Field on May 20, 2012 when the Portland Timbers host the Chicago Fire.
