Seattle NHL Team Polls Fans on Potential Names, Colours

Seattle’s new NHL hockey club is more than two years away from playing their first game; their expansion season isn’t set to begin until fall 2021.

With no logo, uniform, colours, or even a name, the organization has been working hard trying to find that perfect fit for the U.S. Pacific Northwest’s first entry into the National Hockey League.

Back in 2018, it was discovered the group that owned the Seattle bid had registered thirteen domain names which gave us a glimpse of what they were considering at the time — this list consisted of the Cougars, Eagles, Emeralds, Evergreens, Firebirds, Kraken, Rainiers, Renegades, Sea Lions, Seals, Sockeyes, Totems, and Whales.

Over the past few weeks, the team has held online polls and a fan forum to get a sense of what the future fan base would prefer their new team to look like.

From SeattleNHLFans.com:

“We have this discussion at the office a lot,” said one fan, who mentioned he is ready to cheer on the Seattle NHL club as much as his current allegiance to the Sounders MLS squad. “There are some names in the news we like and some we don’t like.”
As the conversation progressed, there was a lot of support for a team name that reflects the region while others vied for a name with alliteration. Most participants liked the idea of green and blue being part of the colour scheme.
“Green is sort of necessary,” said one female fan who noted she and her husband will make at least 15 games per season since having school-age kids makes it hard to attend all games.
Another female fan, a marine biologist, offered an atmospheric entry: “I like the idea of grays and silvers like our skies,” she said.
https://www.seattlenhlfans.com/home/the-fans-speak

The article also included a link to a video where a fan made another interesting point, “It can’t be the Salmon because you can’t have an orca and a salmon in the same division”. He’s right, you know… not to mention that the headlines for any game the Bruins played against the Salmon are already writing themselves.

Polls held on the site in recent weeks suggest fans prefer something new versus something traditional, with “mythical” (Kraken, Firebirds) winning 31% of the vote, and “sea” (Seals, Sockeyes, Whales) getting 28%. “Historical” (Metropolitans, Totems) came in third place of the four options with 26%.

A similar poll for colours revealed that green is by far favoured over anything else with a combined 65% choosing anything that included that colour. Green plus whatever finished in first with 34%, Green + Blue specifically was second with 31, Anything *but* green and blue was third with 20.

If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I’d wager the team will go with green and perhaps include red as their secondary colour – a nod to the colour scheme of the original Seattle Metropolitans, a pre-NHL Stanley Cup Championship team… red is the only colour besides black currently used by the organization in this pre-branding stage.

A program from the Western League’s Seattle Totems in 1963-64

Seattle’s new NHL team is slated to announce their name (and perhaps their logo) this coming August, but merchandise featuring the new look isn’t expected to be available until Fall 2019 so the logo will quite likely be out by then.