Sports
| Club | Sport | League | Stadium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bellingham Bells | Baseball | West Coast Collegiate Baseball League | Joe Martin Field |
| Bellingham Slam | Basketball | International Basketball League, West Conference | Whatcom Pavilion |
| Bellingham Blazers | Hockey | Northern Pacific Hockey League | Bellingham Sportsplex |
| Bellingham Roller Betties | Roller derby | WFTDA | Whatcom Community College Pavillion |
| Bellingham Bulldogs | Football | Pacific Football League (PFL) | Civic Field and Lummi High School |
| Bellingham United FC | Soccer | PCSL | Civic Field |
| Chuckanut Bay Geoducks | Rugby Union | Pacific Northwest Rugby Football Union | Bellingham Rugby & Polo Fields |
| Whatcom Warriors | Youth Ice Hockey | PCAHA & PNAHA | Bellingham Sportsplex |
| Bellingham Rapids | Indoor Soccer | PASL | Bellingham Sportsplex |
The people of Bellingham pursue a diverse range of amateur sports, with skiing and snowboarding at the Mount Baker Ski Area popular in the winter and kayaking and cycling in the summer. Mt. Baker claims an unofficial world record for seasonal snowfall, with 1,140 inches (29,000 mm) recorded in the 1998–1999 season.
Western Washington University, located in Bellingham, is home to NCAA Division II National Women's Rowing Champions. Although always nationally ranked, the Lady Vikings, in 2005, became Western's very first NCAA champion team and won again in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2011. The 2011-2012 Western Men's Basketball team won the NCAA Division II National Championship. .
Western Washington University also operates a successful collegiate road cycling program that took top-5 positions nationwide at the 2006 nationals.
Future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. began his professional career with the Bellingham Mariners. He played in the Northwest League on the team based in Bellingham.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behaviour, attire, grace, learning and all their words aimeth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)