darkpiranha

The United States is the last holdout against name inertia. For decades, I was a militant hardliner that a sports team MUST use the "Cityname Plural Mascots" template. I was so militant about it that I didn't even realize that most soccer teams didn't even HAVE mascots like we do here. I just assumed that whatever Liverpool's mascot was was just being accidentally left off of whatever news report I saw. Names like the Miami Heat, Utah Jazz, etc, just drove me NUTS because they didn't fall neatly into the Cityname Plural Mascots formula. But then almost a decade ago I decided I'd learn about soccer and its leagues and structures, and it drove me NUTS that teams were just Real Madrid or Juventus or Wolves or FC Barcelona. But... after a year or so, all that just faded away. The inertia won out, like it always does. It's just what they are called. The people that whine about these names, like I used to, are such a tiny squeak in the grand field of sports names. I get it. It's super fun right now to be indignant about the Kraken name. It's super fun to troll people who are indignant about the name, KNOWING that at least for the next decade, we'll be able to smugly say, "Told you so" and they'll have to endure it. The team will trot out pre-designed marketing plans and coordinated celebrations, but in a few years, the fans will have developed their own, and the teams own in-progress lore will spawn its own, and Kraken will seem as natural as can be. And yes, the Wild need to start winning for that team name to grow any real national roots. The reason why the Dallas Cowboys is such an iconic team and brand is that they are successful enough for other fanbases to actively HATE. No one hates the Wild. Wild fans like or mildly love their team, but there's no one out there who makes a point of going to whoever the Wild's rival is and posting smack on their message boards. Because no one hates the Wild. Remember how quickly the Avalanche developed their own hatred from Detroit fans? This will all sort itself out. Go Kraken.

Also, if you want to get technical, Washington actually has five championships if you count 1937 and 1942 pre-Super Bowl. Personally, I think all the pre-SB championships should be acknowledged whenever the number of championships is named. It's too often shortened to just Super Bowl titles nowadays. I get it, but if they're going to celebrate the NFL's 100 years of existence, then they just have to give the teams the expanded number of championships they've won and then clarify later how many of those were Super Bowls.

Great start. Probably 30% too busy and intricate, but I like how it feels. For the helmet especially, I think it needs a vastly simpler icon than the whole plane. What if you did something like what the Eagles do, and have the tail end of the plane emerging from the front of the helmet to where the red tail itself is where like the end of the Eagle wing would land. I also love the steel gray as a strong secondary or tertiary color. I'd bring more of it into the helmet and uniform.

I know some will hate it, but I think this ad proves just how unique and compelling the Kraken branding is going to be. There's nothing else like it in any major sport. This is pure fun. Pure gold. I'm already anticipating an amazing pre-game projected lightshow on the ice where it looks like the ice is crackin open and falling in, revealing a dark hole where a single glowing eye appears. Kids are going to eat up all the Kraken stuff and a whole generation of hockey fans will be born (as the creaky old gripey hockey fans die off).

Sadly, this is true. I think the stars have it drilled into their heads to not EVER to do or say anything that might be construed as controversial or bulletin-board material. Sydney Crosby and Connor McDavid have been two of the most transcendent players of the last twenty years, and arguably the two DULLEST interview subjects. But you can't really blame them when anyone can and WILL take something they say and twist it against them. Still, it's sad that the NHL stars seem to not be having that much fun when you speak to them.

Above all of any of the celebration shenanigans, the thing that keeps the NHL minor league in the eyes of general sports fans is the (thankfully dying out) celebration of fighting. In all other aspects of life (and sports), it's expected that adults can control themselves and not throw punches at someone who hurted their feelings or offended them or even got a painful hit in on them. It's only in hockey that it seems people are unable to control themselves and must be granted the freedom to drop their gloves and engage in pre-planned, pseudo-fights just so the crowds can scream and smack on the glass. I get it that there's a vocal hardcore segment of hockey fandom that still gets all excited for this sort of thing, but for the rest of the world, it looks utterly silly and childish and low-rent. The generally-acknowledged greatest hockey ever played was the 87 Canada Cup, which was a celebration of pure hockey ability instead of being ground down by the threat of fighting. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

They may be holding it for later, but I find it interesting that except for that tentacle shape, there's nothing that nails down what this Kraken is. I can see two reasons for that. One, is that they are never going to establish "THIS is the Kraken!" as a specific monster, but instead let it just be an amorphous mystery with a red eye. Granted, it's harder to market and sell stuff. But that leads to my second thought and that's that if they DO nail down a look or a specific monster, it will likely reference, or be visually similar to, some established sea monster. You can't have it look like either of the actual Clash of the Titans krakens without getting into a licensing deal with Warner Bros. If you make it look like the kraken from the Pirates movies, Disney will want a fee. You can make it a generic squid or octopus, but that's pretty dull. So I think they might just not ever definitively establish what the Kraken looks like. Third, this opens up tons of fan involvement. With no definitive look, then fans can dress up as, or create signs for, or buy toys for, any sort of sea monster they can imagine. The team can have "What do YOU think the Kraken looks like?" contests. Even so, it'll be a challenge either way. When you establish "mysterious" as a branding element, you can't just go and reveal the mystery soon after.

I'm buying this today if wishes can ever be turned into reality.

I'm not trying to stir the pot at any point, but I 100% agree with this at the level of ACTUAL vitriol and spittle flying around, and hang-wringing over the name of a team. I get it that we are all here because we CARE about this stuff, but at the end of the day, it's just a logo. It's just a name. I don't get upset or lose any sleep over branding. But I know some here do, and that's okay. It's that gap that's always going to spark amusement in some of us. I 100% enjoy the debate. I rank it right there with "My sports team is better than your sports team!" arguments, which are just fun (but there also, people can somehow take legit personal umbrage that you don't think their team is as good as yours). When I defend my position about a logo, I'm not telling someone they are wrong for hating (or liking) it. I'm defending my 100% subjective opinion as being just as valid as your 100% subjective opinion. I LOVE the Kraken name and have since the first time I heard it bandied about as one of the potential names. I get it that there are a lot of people who hate it. But the mere fact that after a couple of years of the team kicking the tires on identities they decide to go with Kraken is just validation that my first gut reaction was correct, or at least SHARED by a huge number of people. For all the reasons I thought "Kraken" was a great idea, those are the same emotions I heard at the unveiling today, and what I hear from everyone who loves, or has begun to love, this identity. No matter how much historical data, or meme discussion, or disgust towards the identity that gets trotted out, those of us who love the identity are happy and validated. I'm ready to joyously defend the Kraken against anyone who tries to tell me I'm wrong or that liking it is low-rent. I'm glad that you hate it, because it's what makes all of this sportsing fun. Like Seinfeld said, we're cheering for laundry.

I'd agree with this. NHL and NFL have resisted having their ball/puck/stick included in their logos, mostly. You have to admire the Golden Knights and Kraken's NOT including anything in their logos that point towards hockey in any way.

I'm American, and 50 years old, and love the American Revolution, and today is the first time in my life I've ever heard about the Revolutionary War connections to the team's "Hornets" name. At no point in the history of the team has any connection to historical hornets ever been pushed. As you said, it was a cartoon-y hornet from day one, with "hot" colors at the time. Lots of hexagon and hive imagery. Raptors, though, WERE corny from day one, with a VERY cartoon-y basketball-dribbling raptor logo. But the Raptor name and concept was cool in spite of how much it was clearly playing off of Jurassic Park's popularity.

Yes, Cubs would 100% be laughed at as a cutesy "Brandiose" name.

I agree with this post 9.9/10 (I'm twelve years older than you, otherwise, we are simpatico). And it's fun arguing about this stuff in safe areas like this, where we are going to be hyper-nitpicky and opinionated about stuff that 99% of the rest of the world doesn't notice or care about. We all have aspects of this element of sports branding that we are passionate about, or care about more than others, but I love how in spite of that, no one cow-tows to groupthink or peer pressure. The "this is dumb" opinions are just as valid as the "this is awesome" (or as I call it, the "correct") opinions. This is all fun, even the heated discussions.

LOUD NOISES!

And that's MY point. No matter how boring, or historically-inaccurate, or dumb, or cheesy, or meme-y, all of the over-dramatic hand-wringing will fade away if the team wins, and as it settles into the public consciousness. I thought "Golden Knights" was a notch too much of a name, but a couple of years later, I don't even think about the component parts of the name or identity. Golden Knights = "that team with a cool logo and color scheme and that went to the Cup in its first season and got robbed in its second season and is a threat to win in its third season." Right now, Kraken is cool and fun and moody and unique among sports. The logo could have been cheesy, but it's slick and elegant and evocative. So as far as I'm concerned, the whole thing starts on relatively solid ground with nowhere to go but even higher. And if the team wins like Vegas did? It's going to be a fun ride!