The Seattle NHL team unveiled its name Thursday morning, christening the Seattle Kraken as the 32nd franchise and revealing their new colors, logo and uniforms. CEO Tod Leiweke helped make the announcement inside Climate Pledge Arena — which is in the process of being refurbished for the team’s debut in the 2021-22 season — in front of a host of construction workers. The team was set to raise a flag at the nearby Space Needle shortly after the announcement.
The Kraken colors include four shades of blue — a dark navy (which the team calls “deep sea blue”), a grayish teal (“boundless”) and two brighter blues (“shadow” and “ice”) — along with a bright red as an accent color.
https://twitter.com/NHLSeattle_/status/1286334190439395330?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The primary logo is a brighter blue “S” on a navy background, with a tentacled arm reaching up through the “S” and a red eye tucked in the upper curve. The secondary logo combines an anchor shape with the Space Needle.
The team unveiled two uniforms, one navy and one white, with the “S” logo featured on the chest, the anchor logo on the shoulders and a series of blue stripes on the sleeves and above the waist.
.@NHLSeattle_ KRAKEN Home and Away Jersey's pic.twitter.com/ANe89ykuZH
— SiriusXM NHL Network Radio (@SiriusXMNHL) July 23, 2020
Leiweke said the Kraken name was the overwhelming favorite among fans, among more than 1,000 names submitted via surveys. The team’s online store was overloaded with traffic shortly after the announcement.
“It’s a very unique and unusual name in sports, because almost all sport franchises end with an ‘S,’” part-owner Andy Jassy told ESPN. “There are a lot of obvious connections to Seattle — part because of our maritime history; part of because we have so much water around us — but there is longtime folklore in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest of this mystical Kraken creature that lives just below the surface of the sea, which really captivated people for many years.
“That mystique, that intensity, and that power that people have long talked about with the Kraken is what we expect our NHL team to play with.” –Field Level Media ()