It’s official: NHL Seattle team is called the Seattle Kraken

After a long wait and multiple delays, the NHL Seattle franchise finally has a name: the Seattle Kraken.

Kraken photo gallery | Instant Reaction: 710’s voices on Kraken name

The announcement came Thursday morning, less than 24 hours after the organization tweeted out this video of three people on a fishing boat who pulled up a red light in a fishing net. After they examined the light, the camera panned to a ferry boat, which promptly honked its horn, and the light began to flash much like when a goal is scored in a hockey game.

The announcement that NHL Seattle is now the Seattle Kraken was made from the site of the team’s future arena, Climate Pledge Arena. Seattle Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke kicked off the festivities, which was made in front of the arena’s construction workers.

During the Seattle Kraken name reveal, the team also released the new logo, which is a light blue “S,” made to look like tentacles, with a red eye that the team calls “the eye of the beast.” The team’s color scheme is dark blue, light blue, black and red.

A legend from the deep awakens.

Meet the Seattle Kraken → https://t.co/to5BtVVPh1 pic.twitter.com/FQfOdaiGQQ

— Seattle Kraken (@NHLSeattle_) July 23, 2020

“We know that the past few months have posed an unprecedented change in all our lives with many interesting moments,” said Seattle Kraken majority owner David Bonderman in a news release. “Through it all, we have been on a long journey to name our team and design the logo with input from our fans, our leadership team and partners. We already have strong ties to hockey with Ron Francis, our general manager, Tod Leiweke, our CEO, and the backgrounds of many of our senior team and ownership group. We have listened to our community and our fans to create a brand that is the image of who we want to be as an organization.”

Originally, the team name announcement was going to come in early 2019 before being pushed back to the end of the year. It was delayed again to either this February or March, but the organization announced that multiple factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, would likely cause further delay as the team wanted to be mindful of what was going on in the region, the country and the world.

Kraken was the name that was reported earlier this year by Los Angeles Kings reporter Dan Hoven, though at the time the team said it would not be commenting on any reports about the name and that the name would be announced at a later date.

In fact, in a Seattle Times article on the status of the team’s arena, which we learned last month will be called Climate Pledge Arena after Amazon bought the naming rights, Leiweke said it was likely we wouldn’t learn the team’s name until the fall.

A flag with the team’s logo went up shortly after the announcement at the top of the Space Needle, just across the Seattle Center campus from where the team will play its home games.

letting our freak flag fly pic.twitter.com/fxKifbY1Zs

— Seattle Kraken (@NHLSeattle_) July 23, 2020

The Kraken

According to a news release, “The Kraken is a mysterious beast, the largest ever imagined by mankind, and impossible to tame. This legendary sea creature has natural ties to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest through the region’s deep maritime history. This name embodies a connection to the sea, and a curiosity with what lurks beneath.”

Leiweke said that Kraken was a name that many fans of the franchise had been clamoring for.

“The Kraken is a name born of the fans. It was suggested and championed by the fans,” he said. “We embarked on one of the most thorough naming processes in sports to make sure we got it right, to find the name that rings true. We wanted the name to connect to the powerful pull of nature here in the Pacific Northwest and resonate with the fervor for hockey in our city and region. And I promise we are going to deliver the most compelling, entertaining and unifying game experience for every fan who enters Climate Pledge Arena.”

Ron Francis, the team’s general manager, also said that Kraken was the top name he’d heard from fans.

“When I first arrived in Seattle, Kraken was the number one name that fans mentioned to me time and time again,” the Hall of Fame player turned GM said. “We believe the strength and aggression of the Kraken mirrors the sport of hockey and the tenacity our players will show every time they take to the ice. Our players will no doubt feel a sense of pride and confidence when they pull on the sweater.”

During the announcement, Leiweke said that over 200,000 fan votes had come in, with over 1,000 team names suggested.

The colors and logos

The Kraken will utilize five colors in their jerseys and logos: deep sea blue and ice blue being the main colors, along with boundless blue and shadow blue, with red alert as the fifth color, as shown in the eye on the team’s main logo. The Kraken will also use white for road uniforms (more on that below).

As mentioned above, the team’s main logo is the “S” made of Kraken tentacles with a menacing red eye, but the team has two other logos as well. One is the team’s “wordmark,” which is used as the main photo for this story. The secondary logo is an anchor that uses Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. 710 ESPN Seattle’s Taylor Jacobs shared that logo on Twitter.

I very much dig this logo pic.twitter.com/EfVFuMrMGl

— Taylor Jacobs (@TaylorJacobs) July 23, 2020

Check out this photo gallery on 710Sports.com for photos of the team’s logos as well as a rendered image of Climate Pledge Arena with the new team name in place.

The jerseys

On Thursday, the team announced two team jerseys in partnership with Adidas. Associated Press reporter Tim Booth shared photos of the two jerseys. The home jersey, on the left, uses the deep sea blue as the main color.

Finally took a closer look at the Kraken jersey. The colors are really excellent.

Nic Corbett from Adidas told me they made it a point in the home jersey not to have any white. Just the shades of blue with the red accent: pic.twitter.com/fX7Kh794BM

— Tim Booth (@ByTimBooth) July 23, 2020

🔥🔥🔥

can't wait until these officially drop @adidashockey! pic.twitter.com/HA6tp8USE0

— Seattle Kraken (@NHLSeattle_) July 23, 2020

For more information on the color scheme, logos, uniforms and more, visit SeattleKrakenHockey.com.

Jerseys are not yet for sale, but other team merchandise, such as shirts and hats, is available on ReleaseTheKrakenStore.com.

When will we see the team?

Seattle was officially named as the NHL’s 32nd expansion team in 2018. Getting the team name, colors, logos and uniforms is a big step before they officially begin playing, but that won’t be for a while.

The Seattle Kraken’s inaugural NHL season will be in 2021-2022. Currently, the NHL is working to wrap up the 2019-2020 season, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That leaves just one regular season before the Kraken take the ice for the first time.

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