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Seattle NHL Brand Discussion


Toronto206

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25 minutes ago, Toronto206 said:

Being from Seattle I would be thorougly dissapointed if they went with Kraken. It would be Golden Knights all over again.

Is Kraken the Navy's parachute team?

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in 5 years I might be able to post on unpopular opinions "I think Kraken is an awesome name"

SKOL VIKINGS    GO WILD

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            LOSERVILLE          

 

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 Of the names selected for Seattle? I prefer Sea Lions. Evergreens coming in at a respectable second. 

 

“Seals” is good too, but I would prefer it if “Seals” were reserved for the Sharks to use should they choose to acknowledge their “Next Six” heritage. 

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Yeah, "Seattle Seals" would be cool if not for the Oakland Seals being one of the most miserable organizations in NHL history. They traded the Guy Lafleur draft pick for like a Costco-sized box of coffee grounds, unbelievable it was the 1970s NHL, perfectly believable

 

I've had "Evergreens" rattling around in my head for years so obviously I'm partial to that.

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Just now, the admiral said:

Yeah, "Seattle Seals" would be cool if not for the Seals being one of the most miserable organizations in NHL history. They traded the Guy Lafleur draft pick for like a Costco-sized box of coffee grounds, unbelievable.

 

That's too generous. Those weren't coffee grounds, they were used coffee filters!

 

I'm cool with the Sharks wanting to acknowledge the Seals' history, but I'd rather they not go too far with it (e.g., wearing throwbacks and acknowledging the Seals' records). Most Sharks fans either don't care about the Seals or see them as a miserable organization that they don't want connected to their slightly above-average franchise.

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Yeah, give me the teal Seals fauxback for an outdoor game, codify the Seals/Barons/North Stars merger/Sharks lineage, and that's about all there is to do with the Seals.

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21 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

Of the names selected for Seattle? I prefer Sea Lions. Evergreens coming in at a respectable second. 

 

“Seals” is good too, but I would prefer it if “Seals” were reserved for the Sharks to use should they choose to acknowledge their “Next Six” heritage. 

 

I could not agree more.

 

My biggest issue with Kraken is less about geography (we are talking about a fictitious creature after all) as it just sounds bad. I won't pretend for a second to know anything about actual linguistics, but when you say the word Seattle all the sound is from the front of the mouth. Meanwhile Kraken comes form the back of the mouth. I realize this probably sounds silly, but I find the combination of the two very jarring. A name like Seattle Crabs is almost as bad but it benefits from not having the second hard K. Meanwhile compare it to how a name like Seattle Seals or Seattle Totems feels. Seals feels almost velvety...slipping off the tongue, while Totems is very playful, creating a beautiful staccato with the repeating Ts.

 

Krakens could work as a team name, but it would need to be something like the Oakland Krakens or (my personal favorite) the Reykjavik Krakens which manages to sound good and is regionally/culturally relevant.

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Seattle Cougars

No major issues with this, other than its kind of generic. 


Seattle Eagles

See above


Seattle Emeralds

A bit too out there for me. It just does not feel like a sports team name, at least not a hockey name. Feels more fitting for a rugby team if anything.


Seattle Evergreens

I like this, but I could see some identity issues arise as it could be similar in theming to the wild. 


Seattle Firebirds

*cringe*


Seattle Kraken

Awful


Seattle Rainiers

A bit weird. Same with emeralds. Rolls off the tongue well but like emeralds doesn't feel like a hockey team. More fitting for the baseball team in Tacoma.

 

Seattle Renegades

Is this a long lost 90s expansion team from the XTREME Hockey League everyone forgot about until now?
 

Seattle Sea Lions

Not terrible, Seals is better.
 

Seattle Seals

Decent name, don't care about the past teams from the Bay Area. A little weird though naming your team after prey of the logos of your two most immediate geographic rivals though.


Seattle Sockeyes

Not bad, see above though.


Seattle Totems

Hands down my personal favourite. Unique, local to the area, but not just weird like Rainiers or Emeralds. It rolls off the tongue well and you could craft a fantastic identity from it. Not to mention there is local history to the name.
 

Seattle Whales

A bit clunky but not terrible. Part of me actually hopes they pick this because it might incentivize the Canucks to finally drop the Orca.

 

Overall it feels like the names on this list are either just weird or going after old NHL history. They're almost all better than 'Metropolitans' though.

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5 hours ago, Chromatic said:

Overall it feels like the names on this list are either just weird or going after old NHL history. They're almost all better than 'Metropolitans' though.

 

Good point. It seems like the vast majority of names registered either have some existing counterpart, either in the present or historically (or in the case of the Kraken, conceptually). 

 

Cougars, for example, is the mascot of Washington State, who are rivals of the University of Washington (in Seattle). Not only does it seem unlikely for a D-I FBS team in the same state to share their mascot, doing so would be like a team in Tallahassee calling themselves the Hurricanes. 

 

Interestingly enough, Eagles is the mascot of Eastern Washington State, and while they're nowhere near as big a deal as WSU, the same arguments apply. 

 

Emeralds is the name of the NWL team playing out of Eugene Oregon. This one is a bit more of a toss up. The name is interesting and unique in hockey circles, but why set yourself up for potential conflict when there are other (generally better) names available....that's right...I'm looking at you Foley.

 

Rainiers is another minor league baseball team in the PCL that plays just down the road in Tacoma. It's also worth noting that PBR has recently taken over production of Rainier beer and its currently one of it's best performing products. So rather than going up against one potential trademark holder, this name has the potential to generate two lawsuits.

 

On the topic of beer, Sockeye is a brewery out of Boise that could have a problem with the name. However, they're relatively small and may not really care. That being said, Sockeye (like Seals) are farther down the food chain than sharks or orcas...so maybe not the most intimidating mascot.

 

Firebirds feels like they wanted to be the Thunderbirds but realized they didn't want to go up against the local (and venerable) WHL team...so instead they just decided to allude to all of that by stealing the name of an OHL team. 

 

Seals, Sea Lions, Whales, and Totems are all either direct or indirect references to historic hockey teams. Of the set I think Sea Lions and Totems are the best options as they are either different enough from the original reference (Seals - Sea Lions) to stand on their own, or have local significance. As others have pointed out, Seals should really be associated with San Jose more than any other team in the league, and as for Whales (in addition to just sounding odd), I prefer not to see cetacean on cetacean violence. 

 

I've said enough about my opposition to Kraken.

 

Which leaves us with Evergreens and Renegades, which is funny because I feel like the two names couldn't be more different. Evergreens has a refined quality to it, perhaps even too refined for a hockey team. If Sounders had been off the table for Seattle's MLS team I feel like Evergreens would have been a great option, but hockey is a harder sell. I think it could work, but the team would definitely be marketing itself differently than a lot of other teams out there. Meanwhile Renegades is not just generic, it's dated, and has no discernible connection to Seattle...unless we're going all the way back to the WTO protests of the 90s...which would be a very interesting (and obscure) reference.

 

All in all, it feels like the Seattle organization generated these names via a focus group of casual sports fans who happened to be really high. I'm pretty sure if you found the notes you'd see Seahawks written down and crossed out several times along with Mariners and Ice Sonics. 

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Seattle Emerald Knights.

 

 

Yeah I know, but whatever.

 

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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I always liked Renegades as a name for a Dallas expansion team, would have paired well with Mavericks. Doesn't really work for Seattle, sounds too Wild West.

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