Seattle NHL Brand Discussion

[DG_ThenNowForever]

6 minutes ago, Matthew24 said:

I do you one better. Why isn't Breakers used anymore in sports. Seattle Breakers would be a awesome name and would be original in the NHL. I would love to see the nickname be used again in any sports.

 

Doesn't "Breakers" refer to waves breaking against shores? Seattle is on Elliott Bay, but not on the Pacific Ocean. So the dramatic imagery of a wave breaking across rocky shores doesn't really apply here. It would feel weird.

 

If you wanted to relabel the team the Washington Breakers though? Absolutely; there are surfable waves on Washington's Pacific coast. At the same time, I don't think there's a state that does less to build up its oceanfront space; Washington's Pacific coast is cold, gray, drizzly, and generally ignored by Seattle's locals in favor of Hawaii or California. And also, I think naming the team after the state is a great way to suppress local interest.

[VancouverFan69]

50 minutes ago, Matthew24 said:

I do you one better. Why isn't Breakers used anymore in sports. Seattle Breakers would be a awesome name and would be original in the NHL. I would love to see the nickname be used again in any sports.

 

I couldn't agree with you more.

 

Back in the 80's, when the Thunderbirds changed from their Breakers identity and the demise of the USFL(Boston/New Orleans/Portland Breakers) I was in full support of seeing the "Seattle Breakers" in the NHL. And this is before I even heard of the old pro WHL Totems. 

 

Compatible with other NHL club names:

Breakers, Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Oilers.

Breakers, Bruins, Blues.

Breakers, Sharks, Kings, Ducks, Canucks, Flames, Oilers.

 

Catchy slogans:

"Breaking the Ice", "Breakaway", "Breakthrough".

 

Possible colour schemes:

Powder blue with navy blue, forest green with powdery sky blue, forest green with teal, navy blue with powdery sky blue. Silver, orange or yellow-gold as light accents.

 

A streaking two-colour 'S'-wave could be the crest.

 

 

 

[gosioux76]

3 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Doesn't "Breakers" refer to waves breaking against shores? Seattle is on Elliott Bay, but not on the Pacific Ocean. So the dramatic imagery of a wave breaking across rocky shores doesn't really apply here. It would feel weird.

 

If you wanted to relabel the team the Washington Breakers though? Absolutely; there are surfable waves on Washington's Pacific coast. At the same time, I don't think there's a state that does less to build up its oceanfront space; Washington's Pacific coast is cold, gray, drizzly, and generally ignored by Seattle's locals in favor of Hawaii or California. And also, I think naming the team after the state is a great way to suppress local interest.

 

You're 100% accurate in this assessment, which is why I find it hilarious that such a thing as the Portland Breakers existed. Oh man, all those waves coming off the Willamette River!

[Bayne]

Breakers, Steelheads, Sockeyes, Thunderbirds. I like them all. I don't think they'll go with Sockeyes though, unfortunately.

[lilgump]

I haven't seen Breakers be brought up before.  Now that I've heard it, it goes to the top of my personal list. I really enjoy that name.

[king_mahalo]

12 hours ago, monkeypower said:

 

 

So, in your theory, the Thunderbirds would be trying to recoup "COVID-19 losses", of which it would mainly be offsetting the losses of missing the remaining four regular season home games and probably only two home playoff games (because the 24-32-7=55 point T-Birds, at the time of the season being shut down, would have been facing either the 45-11-7=97 point Winterhawks or the 46-13-4=96 point Silvertips). However, also in your theory, the former-Thunderbirds would then have to spend money to deal with rebranding and everything that entails. So they would get money from the Seattle NHL team, which would recoup their "COVID-19 losses", but they they would have to spend money to rebrand, so they probably still wouldn't even recoup all these "COVID-19" losses.

 

There's also been no rumblings from WHL (or NHL) insiders, at least that I've seen. You'd think that if Seattle NHL had reached out to the Thunderbirds "years ago" we would have heard about it. You'd also think that if the Thunderbirds agreed to some 11th hour deal to sell the branding, we also would have heard that. 

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It is extremely unlikely that the Seattle NHL team is going to be the Thunderbirds. Just think about it for a bit.

• Why would the Seattle NHL team want to steal an already existing, and active, team branding instead of creating their own brand new look? It would be an extremely poor brand recognition starting point for this NHL team.
• Why would the Seattle Thunderbirds want to give up their 35 year old branding, which they have built while being the premier hockey team in the greater Seattle area?

COVID losses aren’t over. Do you think we’ll have fans in the stands next season? It’s a pretty lofty goal at this point. And while I’m no WHL expert, I have to imagine that gate revenues are a much larger portion of their income, and their margins are much slimmer than pro franchises. Who would say no to an offer from a group who put up $650M for a franchise? 

why haven’t we heard about it? Same reason why we have no recent leaks since the Kraken rumor. The team is doing a good job of keeping things under wraps. 
 

why would NHL Seattle adopt the Thunderbirds identity? Like you said, it’s an established Seattle hockey identity. It’s a solid name, solid branding, good brand awareness among sports fans in the Northwest. It’s the exact same logic that led to the Seattle Sounders, a name that was overwhelmingly popular with fans. 

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

10 minutes ago, king_mahalo said:

why haven’t we heard about it? Same reason why we have no recent leaks since the Kraken rumor. The team is doing a good job of keeping things under wraps. 
 

why would NHL Seattle adopt the Thunderbirds identity? Like you said, it’s an established Seattle hockey identity. It’s a solid name, solid branding, good brand awareness among sports fans in the Northwest. It’s the exact same logic that led to the Seattle Sounders, a name that was overwhelmingly popular with fans. 

 

 

I think all of that is debatable. I haven't seen any Thunderbirds merchandise locally since the team moved out of Seattle. People in Kent wear jerseys to the games, but that's the only place. No hats. No t-shirts. No hoodies. Nothing. People who like the T-Birds are the people who like the T-Birds, and there really aren't that many of them. At least not visibly. And certainly not in the whole of the northwest.

 

I don't think you can launch any new franchise with a native identity, and certainly not in a city like Seattle and especially not in 2020.

[Stampman]

oops

[monkeypower]

8 hours ago, king_mahalo said:

COVID losses aren’t over. Do you think we’ll have fans in the stands next season? It’s a pretty lofty goal at this point. And while I’m no WHL expert, I have to imagine that gate revenues are a much larger portion of their income, and their margins are much slimmer than pro franchises. Who would say no to an offer from a group who put up $650M for a franchise? 

 

You're certainly speaking like you are.

 

$650M? And they wouldn't be, hypothetically, buying the franchise, they would just be buying the branding.

 

8 hours ago, king_mahalo said:

why haven’t we heard about it? Same reason why we have no recent leaks since the Kraken rumor. The team is doing a good job of keeping things under wraps. 

 

Such a great job that we have list of names they have considered, which has never included Thunderbirds, and those website registrations, which also didn't include Thunderbirds.

 

This theory of yours posits that the Seattle NHLers had reached out to the Thunderbirds sometime in the past, who first turned down the request but then have sent out a 11th hour agreement to recoup COVID-19 losses?

• We have never heard anything about the NHL franchise ever reaching out to the Thunderbirds, not from NHL nor WHL insiders
• If a WHL team was going to make such a huge change and was in such dire straits they were willing to sell their name, there would be rumblings about it
• Why would the NHL franchise, who you say would have already been turned down by the Thunderbirds, throw out all the work they have done in the meantime just because the Thunderbirds came crawling back with an offer x-amount of time later because of a once in a lifetime pandemic that nobody could have predicted?

The Seattle NHLers can keep their own creation process under wraps, because that would all be in house and with the NHL, but wanting to buy Thunderbirds means the inclusion of the Thunderbirds and the WHL, so more people involved, but still nothing is out there.

 

The boards are the only place I have seen people seriously thinking that Thunderbirds could be the name. Nothing on the WHL message boards, nothing from the media, nothing from leaks or trademarking, even nothing from Reddit. Seriously, google "Seattle Thunderbirds NHL". Nothing about this comes up, not even from something like seattlenhlsuperfan.blogspot.co saying "Should they use Thunderbirds?".

 

8 hours ago, king_mahalo said:

why would NHL Seattle adopt the Thunderbirds identity? Like you said, it’s an established Seattle hockey identity. It’s a solid name, solid branding, good brand awareness among sports fans in the Northwest. It’s the exact same logic that led to the Seattle Sounders, a name that was overwhelmingly popular with fans. 

 

It's not the exact same logic as the Sounders. The MLS franchise was awarded to a group led by the owner of the then-USL Sounders, who then moved the branding up a soccer tier. It would be the same exact logic if the NHL franchise had been awarded to the owners of the Thunderbirds, then they decide to fold the WHL team and move the branding up to the NHL.

 

It's not like Thunderbirds is some long dead historical Seattle hockey name, like Totems or Metropolitans, it's a currently existing team with no plans of ceasing to exist with the arrival of the NHL team.

 

Instead of coming out with their own name and putting their own stamp on Seattle as the return of professional hockey after almost 100 years, the NHL franchise is out there like, "Yeah, we'll just use the name that the junior team that has used since the '80s, good enough for us"?

[Ridleylash]

Again, why go with "Thunderbirds" when they can just have their own branding? It's the exact same reason I scoff at people saying "Name them the Supersonics!"; that's just using a brand associated with a completely different group/sport because it has the name "Seattle" attached to it.

 

Seattle NHL wants, and indeed is, pursuing a name original to it. That's why I think they have no interest in going for "Thunderbirds". "Sockeyes" is original to NHL Seattle. So would "Kraken" be, despite how much I detest that name. "Thunderbirds" is already in use in the market for a major junior hockey team. That's why I doubt they've even bothered looking into it.

 

12 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I don't think you can launch any new franchise with a native identity, and certainly not in a city like Seattle and especially not in 2020.

I think you can launch one; but doing it with "Totems", I think, would not go over well; the dark underbelly of the totem poles found in Seattle are well-known by this point. The Seahawks have a Native-based logo, but that base is an actual mask. The T-Birds use the same mask as a base for their own logo, so both have an actual founding in the culture.

 

I think "Sockeyes" would be the perfect name if you want to go that Native-influenced direction; a Coast Salish-inspired salmon logo with a salmon, seafoam and black color scheme could look incredible if done right, and then you have a name and look that are both A.) pretty evocative and interesting and B.) respects the Native culture of the region without using the same imagery as the WHL team or relying on a potentially controversial topic for the name.

 

It's a branding win-win; you get the evocative design of a Native-inspired logo and bright colors, but you also do it in a manner that's very locally-imbued and thus has more staying power in the region. That kind of branding is very, very good.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I see where you're coming from and I agree something like this could look amazing:

 

But...maybe also a literal derivative at this point?

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I see where you're coming from and I agree something like this could look amazing:

 

But...maybe also a literal derivative at this point?

That would NEVER fly. That's far too close to the Canucks' logo. 

[Ridleylash]

Something akin to the Seahawks' logo's use of Native art is more of the direction I would see Seattle taking, honestly. After all, there's similar masks to the one the Seahawks used as reference for salmon;

Aesthetically, I think this is pretty good and distinct from Vancouver. As for full body logos, there's also ways that you can make those distinct from the Canucks' logo;

We already know they were (at least at one point) looking to incorporate Native art into their logo; I'd expect they'd take the care to make it unique from Vancouver considering they're already playing up the rivalry aspect.

 

Ultimately, Vancouver's logo is pretty loose in terms of the elements of Coast Salish art it actually uses. Seattle being more directly and obviously Coast Salish-inspired should be enough differentiation by itself. It's not as if the Canucks' logo looks like this;

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Yes, they're aesthetically pleasing but it's also 2020 and I think any use of native imagery in a new sports logo would necessarily be coupled with a discussion of how the people of Seattle or Washington state give a :censored: about native populations outside of a sports branding context.

[SFGiants58]

23 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Yes, they're aesthetically pleasing but it's also 2020 and I think any use of native imagery in a new sports logo would necessarily be coupled with a discussion of how the people of Seattle or Washington state give a about native populations outside of a sports branding context.

 

Indeed. I'd prefer Seattle NHL stays the heck away from Native American imagery. "Totems," "Thunderbirds," Salish art, etc. should be off-limits.

[Bayne]

Seattle Steelheads. That's a solid hockey team name. No idea what a logo could be for that though. Maybe something ambiguous like the Orca is, where anything can be the logo but the team is still the Steelheads... or would people freak out that the logo isn't exactly what the team name is again. 

[Red Comet]

 

Maybe something like this for the Seattle Sasquatch? Would be great for the "give everyone nightmares" category.

[The_Admiral]

46 minutes ago, Bayne said:

Seattle Steelheads. That's a solid hockey team name. No idea what a logo could be for that though. Maybe something ambiguous like the Orca is, where anything can be the logo but the team is still the Steelheads... or would people freak out that the logo isn't exactly what the team name is again. 

 

That's already an OHL team, they'd have to be the Golden Steelheads

[TenaciousG]

2 hours ago, Bayne said:

Seattle Steelheads. That's a solid hockey team name. No idea what a logo could be for that though. Maybe something ambiguous like the Orca is, where anything can be the logo but the team is still the Steelheads... or would people freak out that the logo isn't exactly what the team name is again. 

My biggest problem with this is many of us Seattleites hate the Steelers. Although we mainly got beat by the refs in the Seahawks/Steelers super bowl.

[Bayne]

12 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

That's already an OHL team, they'd have to be the Golden Steelheads

 

Is that a fact?

Oh well, too bad if true. I just like names that are strong and simple and feel like modern versions of traditional hockey organisations. Steelheads, Sockeyes... they sound classic.