What do you think? Seattle’s name

Yesterday the upcoming Seattle NHL team officially announced their new nickname. The Kraken will take the ice for the 2021-22 season when they kick the Arizona Coyotes out of the Pacific Division and move them to the Central.

Kraken had been on the shortlist of rumored nicknames for a while now. Despite that, I am not sure how many people seriously thought that the team would go with that nickname. The Vegas Golden Knights showed that an expansion team, or any team really, doesn’t need to act like a traditional NHL team, and naming your team Kraken is far from traditional.

Responses on Twitter are overwhelmingly positive when it comes to the nickname “Kraken”, with the second most popular choice being indifference. The Seattle ownership group must be extremely happy with results like this, I doubt they could have anticipated anything better than massive positivity.

And even if you disliked the name, few people are going to take issue with the jersey and logo designs that were released as well.

The biggest complaint I have seen is regarding the red striping, which I kinda agree with, but it is a small part of an extremely well-designed jersey. The logos look great, and I love the incorporation of the Space Needle into the anchor.

Also, the fact that Seattle was able to keep all of this secret for months of hockey fans having little to talk about is very surprising, and I think that has contributed to the positive reception.

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While I absolutely love the jersey I do feel like the cranky killjoy sometimes when it comes to the new Seattle team. I originally voted “Hate it”, but at this point, I would probably be more in the “meh” category.

I think that the team nickname seems almost entirely built on a meme reference, a line from a 2010 remake of a 1981 movie that is mostly remembered for a line said by a guy in very shiny armor. It may be more than that in Seattle and there are eight Kraken themed bars that locals argue over the merits of, but it seems like the team started from the saying and built off that.

And while it has gained support and gone beyond just that, I’m not sure a line from a decade-old movie is a good enough basis for building a lasting franchise identity.

I’m very curious to see what the Seattle Kraken will look like ten or twenty years from now, and if people look around and say “hey what exactly does this mythical Scandinavian sea monster have to do with Seattle?” If anyone can make it work I do think it is the Seattle group, especially when you look at how well they did with their jersey and logo.