Seattle Finally Announces Nickname

The Seattle NHL franchise, the league’s 32nd team, will be known as the Seattle Kraken. The franchise announced the name earlier today in an event at the Climate Pledge Arena, their being-renovated “new” home.

The franchise, which will begin play in 2021-22, also unveiled their team colors and home (dark) uniforms.

The name “Kraken” comes from Norse mythology. It is said to be a large sea beast that lurks beneath the North Atlantic Ocean off of Greenland and Norway.

What, exactly, does that have to do with Seattle, Washington, a city firmly located in the North Pacific, about 3,000 miles away from the Atlantic Ocean? Well, one of their co-owners is film producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series for Disney. The second film in that series, Dead Man’s Chest, featured a Kraken as a main plot device.

Hey, that’s the best I could do, OK?

Anyway, the team colors are “deep sea blue” as their primary and then “ice blue,” “shadow blue,” “boundless blue” and “red alert” as their secondary colors.

The logo features a lone “S” in a nod to the Seattle Metropolitans, the Pacific Coast Hockey Association team that became the first American team to win the Stanley Cup. They defeated the Montreal Canadiens in 1917 prior to the formation of the NHL itself.

The logo is kind of an Olde English style “S,” similar to the Chicago White Sox logo in Major League Baseball. The “S” features a red eye at the top of it and a tentacle as part of the letter.

Their secondary logo is really cool. It features an anchor with the Seattle Space Needle forming the top of it. That will be worn as a patch on the shoulders of the jerseys.

The jerseys and logo were designed by the team with assistance from Adidas.

From now through August 21, according to an article on NHL.com by Nicholas J. Cotsonika, 100-percent “of net sale proceeds … from a bespoke line of merchandise” will be donated “to local nonprofits YouthCare, Community Passageways and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle to help end youth homelessness and create positive pathways and opportunities for BIPOC youth in the Seattle area.”

You can go to releasethekrakenstore.com for more information.

Now, I was not really a fan of the name, as I thought it was a little bit goofy, but the logo really does away with that. The endless puns that can be formed from the name are a headline writer’s dream, but the logo is the real star of this whole thing.

Also, their colors, featuring not one, not two, not three, but FOUR shades of blue is kind of cool. The red in the eye of the Kraken in the logo just makes kind of complements the whole thing.

As a fan of one team named after a mythical beast to another, welcome to the NHL Seattle Kraken!

Binghamton Devils Unveil Logo, Jerseys

The newly-relocated American Hockey League affiliate of the New Jersey Devils, the Binghamton Devils, unveiled their logo and jerseys earlier today in an event at the team’s home arena, the Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena.

The event was a combo logo and jersey reveal/fan fest/open house for the people of Binghamton to get to know their new team better. New Jersey Devil legend Ken Daneyko was on hand, as was radio play-by-play man Matt Loughlin.

Devils executive Hugh Weber was on hand yesterday at a press conference to introduce the new ownership and the team to the local media.

Once the fans were seated at the event, Daneyko and Loughlin took the stage to make the official unveilings of the logo marks and the uniforms. The uniforms themselves are nothing too special. The same new templates used by the big club with the red base for the homes and white for the roads with black shoulders and those even-sized stripes on the sleeves that every fan seems to hate. There are no stripes at the hem. The jerseys are exactly the same as what the NHL club will be wearing next fall.

The logos, however, are completely original to the Bing Devils. In total, four logos were unveiled. The primary logo is a red devil face with a hockey helmet on, horns poking out of the top of the helmet and a devil tail running behind the head. The visor of the helmet adds a little bit of grey and black to the red face. The helmet is white with grey shading and reads “Devils” across the forehead (where you would find “CCM” or another brand mark on a real helmet). The whole logo is outlined in black. There is a small black pointy beard at the chin of the devil face.

That is the logo that will be featured as the crest on the home and away jerseys.

The second logo unveiled was a wordmark that has the horns coming out of the name “Binghamton” on the top (with Binghamton rendered in red), “Devils” written below it in white with a grey shadow and a tail coming out from behind the word “Devils.” This is also outlined in black and white.

There is another logo that combines the wordmark and the primary logo (without “Devils” written on the devil face’s helmet). This is classified as a secondary logo.

Another interesting feature was another logo that will be featured as a shoulder patch. It features a hockey puck with flames at the top and a pitchfork in the middle (all in red outlined in white). At the bottom edge of the puck is written “Binghamton.”

All in all, it is not a bad set of logos and really surprising to me, since I figured the whole thing would result in the New Jersey Devils logo in the shape of a “B.” It is, instead, an original set of logos and, you might have to believe, a sign of things to come in New Jersey, since there are rumors of a Devils third jersey for the 2018-19 season.

The new logos, as well as information on the team, can be found at BinghamtonDevils.com.