In a pro sports landscape with generic team names and safe branding, \u201cKraken\u201d was different. It sounded and felt like Seattle, which had bonafide maritime roots but also had always been innovative and somewhat unconventional. Even with a late-2000s mass influx of technology industry transplants \u2013 many of them NHL fans and future Kraken supporters \u2013 the city still embraced its roots and the things that made it different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This was never just about a sea monster. The name reflected a Pacific Northwest community defiantly getting off the mat and rediscovering itself in sports; eager to prove it could still support another major pro winter team years after losing the NBA Sonics to Oklahoma City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kraken gave Seattle something to rally around,\u00a0and the name became synonymous with that ambition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plenty of naming ideas sound great in a\u00a0corporate\u00a0board room\u00a0only to land flat with the public.\u00a0But in this case, initial controversy aside;\u00a0the name quickly took hold and\u00a0stood\u00a0the test of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former team president and general manager Ron Francis would later tell me for my 2022 \u201cRising From The Deep\u201d book that NHL Seattle didn\u2019t initially even have \u201cKraken\u201d in its final name grouping. The owners and NHL Seattle executives were instead contemplating different names on a shortlist in\u00a0summer of 2019\u00a0that was\u00a0sent to a designer for logo\u00a0mockups of each.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Francis would eventually get to speaking with Heidi Dettmer, the team\u2019s vice-president of marketing at the time, who told him about her Scandinavian grandparents regaling her with Kraken lore as a child. He found it fascinating and when team CEO\u00a0Tod\u00a0Leiweke later asked Francis which shortlisted\u00a0name he felt was best, the GM\u00a0replied: \u201cHonestly, you\u2019re going to think I\u2019m nuts, but I like Kraken.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others felt the same. As it had many times previously, the \u201cKraken\u201d name suggestion refused to die. And when it was ultimately chosen, the biggest reason was that no other name generated such passion \u2014 pro or con \u2014 among fans. That\u2019s the kind of authenticity marketing teams pay consultants years to help generate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arguments may rage about the team\u2019s roster construction, coaching decisions, lineup usage and all other stuff fans of established pro franchises fret about. But few debate the Kraken\u00a0name anymore, even those like me who once vehemently opposed it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aaron Wiggan, the team\u2019s vice-president of brand\u00a0creative, said the Kraken are one of the few NHL\u00a0squads\u00a0to\u00a0develop a \u201cbrand narrative\u201d\u00a0of storytelling\u00a0to guide the design process and visual identity behind the team\u2019s\u00a0name and the\u00a0merchandise and other public facing elements\u00a0spawned by it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The core tenets of the team\u2019s brand storytelling remain the same: Play in the \u201ctheater of the mind\u201d by showing the fin and never the shark \u2014 just as director Steven Spielberg famously did with his blockbuster Jaws movie in 1975. Thus, the Kraken creature has never entirely been shown; only hints of it such as a glowing red eye and a tentacle here and there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the storytelling around the creature and some of the characters involved with it \u2014 such as the ocean and its lore, mystery and nautical life \u2014 remain multi-layered and have evolved over time. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore\u00a0we had a\u00a0team\u00a0we wanted to own the idea of the adventure and what awaits so we would lean heavily into maps,\u00a0and\u00a0topographic, dark water to build the sense of impending adventure,\u201d\u00a0Wiggan said. \u201cAs we progressed over the seasons we advanced the narrative too \u2014 adding more scrimshaw type artwork and details as we shared the stories of adventure and experiences with our fans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other additions included\u00a0Northwest textures to show\u00a0the Kraken team\u2019s connection to Seattle\u2019s\u00a0gritty, intense, hard-working\u00a0roots. The team\u00a0showcased\u00a0\u201cThe Deep\u201d\u00a0as a place and a mentality, which quickly gained popularity among fans.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over time, the narrative added more menacing elements of an all-black third jersey and\u00a0bioluminescence\u00a0to create an abyss-like version of the team\u2019s nautical world. This coming season, the narrative will further\u00a0illustrate connections between the Kraken brand and the local community, portraying \u201cThe Deep\u201d as true to Seattle\u2019s core and how the city\u2019s players and people share a kindred spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a pro sports landscape with generic team names and safe branding, \u201cKraken\u201d was different. It sounded and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-841037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}