As the name of the new Seattle NHL team, "Kraken" breaks ground in a couple of ways. One is that the mythical sea creature surfaced in Jerry Bruckheimer's Pirates of the Caribbean movies—a bit of product placement long before team owner Bruckheimer had the product. Another is that the Kraken will be Seattle's first men’s professional sports team whose name doesn't end in "s," the Times reports. The area also has two women's pro teams that qualify: the Storm and the Reign. And, of course, there aren't many teams named after a giant squid, real or not. The team also released its logo, designed with Adidas, and team colors on Thursday. Three shades of blue are included: Deep Sea Navy, Ice Blue and Shadowy Blue. The accent bit of red is Red Alert. The designs pay tribute to the uniforms worn by the Seattle Metropolitans, a Pacific Coast Hockey Association team that played from 1915 to 1924.
Other names, including Sockeyes and Totems, had support. "We considered everything," the team's CEO said. "And many of the names had plusses and many had minuses." But the winner—and especially the command "Release the Kraken!"—kept coming up, per ESPN. "Throughout this whole process, it's been a rallying cry for fans," a team marketing official said. A minority owner envisions interest off the ice. "I think the mythology of the Kraken is going to be really interesting, especially in an arena that’s being dug more than 50 feet below the ground," he said. The Adidas design boss wasn't concerned that the logo be tied too directly to the squid. "No matter what the name was, the logo had to have prestige," he said. "It had to have a certain status … so, no cartoons for sure." The team, for which the owners paid the NHL a $650 million expansion fee, is scheduled to begin play in October 2021. (There were bumps on the way to a team name.)
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