NHL’s New Seattle Kraken Announce Name & Logos

The seas of the National Hockey League got slightly more terrifying this afternoon… we’ve seen stick-wielding seals, killer orca whales, creepy fishermen, but now there’s a kraken lurking in those deep, dark waters.

Yes, today the NHL’s newest team made it official, they will be known as the Seattle Kraken when they take the ice at the Climate Pledge Arena for the 2021-22 season. The league’s 32nd franchise made the announcement via a video live-streamed to the team’s official website and social media channels. They will be the first expansion team to join the NHL since the Vegas Golden Knights began to play four years earlier in 2017-18.

So, what exactly is a Kraken and why is the new Seattle NHL team named for it?

A kraken is a mythological sea creature, with its origins in Scandinavia folklore. According to the legends, the kraken lives in the Northern Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Norway and Greenland, terrorizing any seafaring vessel which may have had the misfortune to pass by. In modern fiction, it’s been featured in many films involving sea journeys including the 2010 film Clash of the Titans during which Liam Neeson summons the beast with his memorable line, “Release the Kraken!”

An illustration from the 1870 edition of *Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea* (Wikipedia)

How it ended up as the name of a hockey team in Seattle is likely connected to Jerry Bruckheimer, the co-founder and co-owner of the team. In the early 2000s, Bruckheimer produced each installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, the second installment of which featured the mysterious kraken as an antagonist destroying ships.

The logo, also unveiled with the name today, is a letter “S” for Seattle, as well as a nod to the logo of the old Seattle Metropolitans from the 1910s, the first U.S.-based team to win the Stanley Cup. Within the S we see a tentacle, giving us a hint of the beast lurking below the waters, as well as the eye of the monster. The logo was designed in close partnership with Adidas.

There’s a secondary logo mashing up the Seattle Space Needle with an anchor, tying in some local imagery to the overall brand of the team.

The team’s home jersey was also released featuring the navy blue colour as its base. The “S” logo on the chest and the secondary Space Needle logo on the shoulders, two shades of teal as stripes and a thin red stripe around the waist and both sleeves.

Official team colours include *four* different shades of blue and red, the team refers to them as Deep Sea Blue, Ice Blue, Boundless Blue, Shadow Blue, and Red Alert.

The Seattle Kraken will begin putting together their roster via the expansion draft in the Summer of 2021, they’ll play their first pre-season games in September and finally hit the ice for reals at the brand new Climate Pledge Arena in October 2021. Welcome to the NHL, time to get kraken!

We’ll have more on this story as information becomes available! Please check back for more later.