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Seattle NHL Brand Discussion


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On 11/15/2019 at 9:23 AM, DastardlyRidleylash said:

I don't. It's really generic, almost like if they decided to name their affiliate the Firebirds. I doubt they go for a team name that could be pulled straight from an EASHL club.

I'd say, like the Sounders name with Seattle soccer, Thunderbirds is a name very close to Seattle fan's hearts. I know it's a national game and they will want to market nationally, but a name that is a hit with Seattle fans (regardless of what people not in the region think) should be very high on the list. 

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I'm skeptical of a major-junior hockey team's branding being close to anyone's hearts in a major market. Toronto doesn't even care about that stuff and they breathe hockey. The Regina Pats, maybe.

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19 hours ago, the admiral said:

I'm skeptical of a major-junior hockey team's branding being close to anyone's hearts in a major market. Toronto doesn't even care about that stuff and they breathe hockey. The Regina Pats, maybe.

Well when it's been the name of the only hockey team in town for 35 years, people identify with it. That being said, they don't need to keep the same brand look/feel (Sounders completely changed their look when they came into the MLS), just the name. 

 

I know it probably won't happen but I think there is a solid argument for it being the name.  

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The amount of Thunderbirds merchandise I see out in the open on a daily basis is effectively nil. I think I've seen one Thunderbirds had on a person in maybe the past year. Granted, I don't live in Seattle hockey country (most of my time is in the urban core), but if it's truly a beloved brand, it would have some kind of local standing. It matters for the 5,000 people who go to the games in Kent, but I think any new brand will be happily lapped up when the team launches.

 

That said, the Thunderbirds logo is Seahawks-adjacent in a good way, and I think if the NHL team launched with it, people would react positively, though perhaps more in a big/little brother way.

 

On 11/14/2019 at 10:53 AM, Survival79 said:

 

Quote

 

On a Friday morning in October, Alexandra Mandrycky, director of hockey strategy and research for the NHL expansion franchise in Seattle, posted a thread of tweets soliciting applications for three jobs in the hockey operations department, hoping for a few nibbles over the weekend. Instead, the interest was so overwhelming—the thread’s first message had 241 retweets and some 1,300 likes at last tally—that Mandrycky had to shut off her notifications.

 

“I was not,” she says, “expecting that to blow up.”

 

 

Uh...I'm not convinced she's in the right place if she's surprised people want to work for a hockey team. WTF?

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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20 hours ago, hawk36 said:

Well when it's been the name of the only hockey team in town for 35 years, people identify with it. That being said, they don't need to keep the same brand look/feel (Sounders completely changed their look when they came into the MLS), just the name. 

 

I know it probably won't happen but I think there is a solid argument for it being the name.  

 

T-Birds aren't even the only show in town currently. They share the region with the Everett Silvertips. A good chunk of NHL Seattle's fans will be Silvertips fans. I'm sure they wouldn't be enamored with the NHL team adopting the Thunderbirds' name. I think the NHL franchise is better off creating their own identity. 

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On 11/22/2019 at 8:22 AM, king_mahalo said:

 

T-Birds aren't even the only show in town currently. They share the region with the Everett Silvertips. A good chunk of NHL Seattle's fans will be Silvertips fans. I'm sure they wouldn't be enamored with the NHL team adopting the Thunderbirds' name. I think the NHL franchise is better off creating their own identity. 


This is actually a very good point since the T-Birds are currently in Kent. North Seattle tends to be more Silvertips country and the south/Tacoma goes for the T-Birds. You may have swayed me off T-Birds as an option.

 

I’m in on Sockeyes, just announce it already.

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On 11/22/2019 at 9:22 AM, king_mahalo said:

 

T-Birds aren't even the only show in town currently. They share the region with the Everett Silvertips. A good chunk of NHL Seattle's fans will be Silvertips fans. I'm sure they wouldn't be enamored with the NHL team adopting the Thunderbirds' name. I think the NHL franchise is better off creating their own identity. 

Would it be too far to say it go the same with the Americans and Chiefs fans? I know they are much farther from the city, but if they are trying to capture the state as their market is that possible to some degree? I wouldn’t know. More of a question from a guy looking at it from the outside.

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49 minutes ago, Proc said:

I like the idea of Sockeyes. Bring on the fierce, skating fish!!!

 

Here's the problem with going "Sockeyes:"

 

  1. Marketing jagoffs will do everything in their power to convince ownership NOT to use the name
  2. ...and that's it

 

They should hopefully look at the New Orleans Pelicans and Florida Marlins as ways to promote and brand unconventional but locally-accurate identities.

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8 minutes ago, CS85 said:

Marketing jagoffs will do everything in their power to convince ownership NOT to use the name

Counterpoint; marketing also could see loads of brand puns to make, and those are good marketing. "The Shoal" can be the team's fanbase nickname, for example. Plus there's a load of marketing speak ways to explain why the sockeye salmon represents "the integrity of our club", "the determination of our players", etc.

 

Plus, like, this league has teams named after pretty unintimidating things. When's the last time you considered a duck to be rather intimidating? 😛

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17 minutes ago, DastardlyRidleylash said:

When's the last time you considered a duck to be rather intimidating? 😛

 

That's a bit of an outlier since the Mighty Ducks films were still relatively fresh at the time, hugely popular, and it felt like an obvious move to make for a Disney-owned and near-Disneyland franchise (sort of like the Orlando Magic).

 

 

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4 hours ago, CS85 said:

 

Here's the problem with going "Sockeyes:"

 

  1. Marketing jagoffs will do everything in their power to convince ownership NOT to use the name
  2. ...and that's it

 

They should hopefully look at the New Orleans Pelicans and Florida Marlins as ways to promote and brand unconventional but locally-accurate identities.

 

why would a marketing team dislike this name?

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4 minutes ago, king_mahalo said:

 

why would a marketing team dislike this name?

 

 

"We've done polls that indicate fans like teams with more aggressive mascots:  Animals, weather, and so on.  We also see that the colors that sell are navy, red, and light blue, so we should probably go with those."

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30 minutes ago, CS85 said:

 

 

"We've done polls that indicate fans like teams with more aggressive mascots:  Animals, weather, and so on.  We also see that the colors that sell are navy, red, and light blue, so we should probably go with those."

This information is from polls done in the greater Seattle area?

 

I can only go by what I hear on local sports radio when the topic comes up every couple of weeks, but it would seem the most support there is for Sockeyes and then Steelheads with Kraken getting pretty universally panned. 

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33 minutes ago, hawk36 said:

This information is from polls done in the greater Seattle area?

 

I can only go by what I hear on local sports radio when the topic comes up every couple of weeks, but it would seem the most support there is for Sockeyes and then Steelheads with Kraken getting pretty universally panned. 

 

 

I'm simply being speculative.  It's my way of protecting myself from getting too excited about the Sockeyes or any other unique branding.

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2 hours ago, hawk36 said:

This information is from polls done in the greater Seattle area?

 

I can only go by what I hear on local sports radio when the topic comes up every couple of weeks, but it would seem the most support there is for Sockeyes and then Steelheads with Kraken getting pretty universally panned. 

 

According to a poll that NHL Seattle ran on their fan portal, 31% of fans prefer a team name involving "mythical creatures" (kraken). 28% said "sea animals," 26% said "historical references," and 14% said "anything that eats Canucks."

 

In a separate poll, 35% of fans said "things that swim," 27% said "things you fear," 26% said "things that fly" and 11% said "things you climb."

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48 minutes ago, TaylorMade said:

 

According to a poll that NHL Seattle ran on their fan portal, 31% of fans prefer a team name involving "mythical creatures" (kraken). 28% said "sea animals," 26% said "historical references," and 14% said "anything that eats Canucks."

 

In a separate poll, 35% of fans said "things that swim," 27% said "things you fear," 26% said "things that fly" and 11% said "things you climb."

Yikes. That's bad news. Kraken would then seem to be the frontrunner. 

 

But, being that the ownership group are all very sharp, I'd think they've dived a little deeper than into just an online poll. I mean that is one great avenue, but by no means should it be the end-all. 

 

Just found this though, may be too old but gives the never-Kraken crowd hope?

 

 

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