Seattle NHL Brand Discussion

[CS85]

"BREAKING:  It looks like the NHL is getting some new blood in the form of the Seattle Wildcat Warrior Falcon Storm!  The Wildcat Warrior Falcon Storm will be taking to the ice in their black, navy, red, gold, electric green, and camouflage uniforms next year, and if your kids would like to meet their mascot, "José the Foul Abomination Unfit For a God-Fearing Earth", he'll be visiting the Rainier Valley Food Bank and the Seattle Children's Autism Guild on Friday and Saturday nights every week through the end of March."

[CreamSoda]

I am starting to be OK with Kraken.  

[gosioux76]

36 minutes ago, hawk36 said:

One thought, Kraken is a safe name for relocation. Sockeyes is really tied to the region whereas the Kraken isn’t tied to anything in the USA. If the Seattle team fails, no rebrand is needed when relocating. 

 

I really only think that makes a difference when you're talking about the potential relocation of historic brands -- like, say, the Athletics. If I were the owner of a team considering relocation, I'd prefer rebranding a team rather than carrying over the identity of a failed franchise. I'd think it would be easier to appeal to a new market if you were to tailor the brand specifically for them. 

[LMU]

2 hours ago, hawk36 said:

One thought, Kraken is a safe name for relocation. Sockeyes is really tied to the region whereas the Kraken isn’t tied to anything in the USA. If the Seattle team fails, no rebrand is needed when relocating. 

Albuquerque Kraken wouldn’t exactly work too well.

[CreamSoda]

5 minutes ago, LMU said:

Albuquerque Kraken wouldn’t exactly work too well.

 

Desert Kraken

[OnWis97]

Perhaps the first choice was Evergreens.  And maybe it went like this:

-"But the Minnesota Wild already use evergreens in their logo so that would be redundant."

-"Fine, let's go with Kraken."

Then the perpetually mediocre, underachieving franchise in Minnesota can be responsible for the two worst names in the NHL.

[spartacat_12]

On 2/3/2020 at 9:45 AM, sparky chewbarky said:

If so, there's a huge giant squid population off the PNW shore. As mentioned, there's a SkyKraken Seattle beer; there's the famous Kraken Bar & Lounge, there are the stories of a huge tentacled beast living near the Tacoma Bridge, the Sound is full of squid and giant octopi, squid-jiggin's a local thing, (didn't know there was a large Scandinavian population...there's that too). 

 

But, as well as ALL THE ABOVE... that big blue thing on Seattle's horizon, makes a nautical theme very appropriate, and "Krāken" is a great nautical name.

The ownership group stated a desire to create a global brand, and that's where Krāken kicks ass. It's a legendary name with global recognition.

Locally...Yes you're right...it's not as Seattle-centric as some of the other names (Rainiers wins that category), but to say it has zero relevance to the area is a little extreme.

I'd say, considering all of the above, it would have as much or more relevance, as many team names have to their areas.

It could work and be very successful, if done properly.

 

If they insist on using a cephalopod mascot just call them the Seattle Squids then. Teams should try to avoid singular names whenever possible, plus Squids gives you alliteration, and you can make the connection to Puget Sound's naval history.

[hawk36]

3 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I really only think that makes a difference when you're talking about the potential relocation of historic brands -- like, say, the Athletics. If I were the owner of a team considering relocation, I'd prefer rebranding a team rather than carrying over the identity of a failed franchise. I'd think it would be easier to appeal to a new market if you were to tailor the brand specifically for them. 

I agree completely. I'd just worry that if the ownership is looking at a non-regional name, then they may not be all the interested in keeping the team in the area if things get tough. 

[ScubaSteve]

18 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

Either way, I don't see what the problem is.  It's not like a kraken was invented for either of these movies.  And the waters off Seattle are home to giant squid that may well have inspired the legend, not to mention the Giant Pacific Octopus.  Seattle has as much legitimate claim to the name as any city.

 

Perfectly said. There may have been a resurgence in it's usage in our lexicon recently thanks to this and Pirates of the Caribbean, but for anyone to suggest that it's only popular because of a meme is being ridiculous

[DG_ThenNowForever]

2 hours ago, LMU said:

Albuquerque Kraken wouldn’t exactly work too well.

 

It would certainly be quirky!

[Gothamite]

Still better than Sod Poodles or Ice Hogs.   

[Mingjai]

2 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

It would certainly be quirky!

 

It is the "Land of Enchantment" afterall...

[Chromatic]

18 hours ago, hawk36 said:

One thought, Kraken is a safe name for relocation. Sockeyes is really tied to the region whereas the Kraken isn’t tied to anything in the USA. If the Seattle team fails, no rebrand is needed when relocating. 

I don't buy that. First, you should be going in with your absolute best ideas, not cowtowing to a hypothetical relocation years down the line. Thats how you get crap like "Warriors" and "Wildcats". Second, if you do end up in a relocation, you are going to want to rebrand anyway.

[IceCap]

On 2/2/2020 at 8:28 PM, Gothamite said:

Either way, I don't see what the problem is.  It's not like a kraken was invented for either of these movies.  And the waters off Seattle are home to giant squid that may well have inspired the legend, not to mention the Giant Pacific Octopus.  Seattle has as much legitimate claim to the name as any city.

 

 

14 hours ago, ScubaSteve said:

 

Perfectly said. There may have been a resurgence in it's usage in our lexicon recently thanks to this and Pirates of the Caribbean, but for anyone to suggest that it's only popular because of a meme is being ridiculous

The problem is that if you take the two Clash of the Titans and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel out of the equation you're left with Norse myths about a giant fish or whale in the North Atlantic. 

So...one or the other. 

 

19 hours ago, sparky chewbarky said:

Google "krāken" and the most recent stories re: krāken are Pac-centric

Perhaps we shouldn't be rooting for the team to further muddle the myth's historic origins 

[IceCap]

21 hours ago, sparky chewbarky said:

It's believed that krāken sightings were actually giant squid sightings (although IceCap would disagree with that).

See what I mean about the above? You're misremembering facts thanks to a fusion of unrelated myths. And this isn't me "disagreeing." I'm just providing the correct historic context.

 

The kraken myth's origins are hard to track because it existed as an oral myth long before someone bothered to write it down. It was brought back to mainland Scaninavia by returning vikings who spoke of the kraken as a fish so large that it could be mistaken for an island when its back was above water. Regardless, it was recorded in the Konungs skuggsjá, a Norwegian natural history book written in 1250.

 

Quote

There is a fish that is still unmentioned, which it is scarcely advisable to speak about on account of its size, because it will seem to most people incredible. There are only a very few who can speak upon it clearly, because it is seldom near land nor appears where it may be seen by fishermen, and I suppose there are not many of this sort of fish in the sea. Most often in our tongue we call it kraken... the times he has shown before men, he has appeared more like land than like a fish.

Emphasis being mine.

 

The kraken was recorded again a few decades later in a version of the Icelandic saga Örvar-Oddr.

 

Quote

Now I will tell you that there are two sea-monsters. One is called the kraken, another lyngbakr.. It is the largest whale in the world, but the kraken is the largest monster in the sea. It is the nature of this creature to swallow men and ships, and even whales and everything else within reach. It stays submerged for days, then rears its head and nostrils above surface and stays that way at least until the change of tide. Now, that sound we just sailed through was the space between its jaws, and its nostrils and lower jaw were those rocks that appeared in the sea...

Again, described more like a fish than a squid or octopus.

 

Hell, have a Swedish map from the 1500s that depicts all manner of sea creatures between Norway and Iceland. We see illustrations that could be interpretations of giant fish, whales, dragons....there's even a lobster in there. No squids though.

 

 

 

So where did the kraken as a giant squid or octopus come from?

Well there were other stories of sea monsters unrelated to the kraken. Many of which made their way back to Europe and the European colonies in the New World as the Age of Exploration kicked off. One of the sorts of sea stories that gained traction were those of giant squids and octopuses. These remained unaffiliated with the kraken myth, which was actually pretty obscure by the time the colonization of the New World was in full swing. Vikings were thought of as medieval barbarians during this period, and there wasn't much, if any, scholarly research into their culture or myths.

That began to change with the Viking Revival in the late 1700s. This saw a renewed interest in pre-Christian medieval Scandinavian history across Europe and North America. Old Norse sagas were dug out of libraries and re-examined, viking archaeological sites began to get serious academic study, etc...And to be clear, this included Scandinavia. The Scandinavian nations shunned a lot of the history and culture of their viking eras after Christianization had taken hold. For many Scandinavian scholars the renewed interest in viking history came as sort of a national intellectual revolution.

 

So along comes one Erik Pontoppidan, a Danish scholar and traveller. He would have been familiar with viking legends, being a scholar in late 18th century Scandinavia, Ground Zero of the Viking Revival movement. He was familiar with the kraken from the above-mentioned legends. And as a traveller he was well aware of the unrelated stories told by sailors of giant squids and giant octopuses. He conflated the two, assigning the name "kraken" to the giant squid and octopus tails, when previously it was an obscure myth about a big fish.

Pontoppidan was writing at the height of the "travel guide" phase of western literature, where first-hand accounts of far-away lands were all the rage across western Europe. Pontoppidan's stories became popular and received English translations.

Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick in 1851, where the squid fought by the sperm whale is referred to as a "kraken," with Erik Pontoppidan's description specifically name-dropped. From here on the idea of the kraken as a giant squid or octopus was embedded in the collective imagination of the English-speaking world.

 

What's funny is that the giant squids and octopuses were thought to be myths, like the original kraken was before they were merged by Pontoppidan's writings. It wasn't until the early 20th century that proof of the giant squid's existence began to emerge. Giant octopuses remain in the realm of myth, however.

 

My point to all of this is to say that the first stories of kraken were not, as you suggested, sightings of giant squids. Why? The simple fact is that the early viking sagas that describe kraken weren't describing squids. They describe what appear to be giant fish. It's not until Erik Pontoppidan in the 1750s that the old kraken myth was synchronized with contemporary sightings of giants squids.

[Chromatic]

I know I've said it before but it really just escapes me why this board seems to have such an fixation on the name Kraken having Scandinavian origins, and therefore can't apply to Seattle. Its an awful name, and they shouldn't pick it for that reason alone. But you don't need to get so pedantic over minutia like this to justify not using it. You can apply the same criteria to pretty much every name there is.

[GMW79]

18 hours ago, LMU said:

Albuquerque Kraken wouldn’t exactly work too well.

The Albuquerque Sand Kraken would "work" for a lower minor league hockey team...

[Chromatic]

1 minute ago, GMW79 said:

The Albuquerque Sand Kraken would "work" for a lower minor league hockey team...

Someone call Brandiose.

[Gothamite]

11 minutes ago, Chromatic said:

I know I've said it before but it really just escapes me why this board seems to have such an fixation on the name Kraken having Scandinavian origins, and therefore can't apply to Seattle. Its an awful name, and they shouldn't pick it for that reason alone. But you don't need to get so pedantic over minutia like this to justify not using it. You can apply the same criteria to pretty much every name there is.

I actually like the name, but yeah.  This.

[IceCap]

18 minutes ago, Chromatic said:

I know I've said it before but it really just escapes me why this board seems to have such an fixation on the name Kraken having Scandinavian origins, and therefore can't apply to Seattle.

Some people like to be precise.

 

18 minutes ago, Chromatic said:

But you don't need to get so pedantic over minutia like this to justify not using it. You can apply the same criteria to pretty much every name there is.

I don't think so. I think names like "Lions," "Cardinals," or "Penguins" can work (almost) anywhere because they are themselves generic names. With something like "kraken"? We're talking mythology, specifically the fact that the kraken was never a real thing. It was a myth before Erik Pontoppidan and Herman Melville applied its name to another mythical creature that turned out to be real.

So unlike actual animals which are just around and existing in the world? "Kraken" is one of those sorts of mythological monsters that only exists in story. And story is something you can trace. So people do that, end up in early medieval Scandinavia, and go "wait, why are we applying that to the Pacific Northwest?"

 

How much you care, or let that bother you, depends on how you stack "Kraken" up with stuff like "Knights," "Eagles," "Bengals," "Cavaliers," etc... For some, the fact that kraken is mythological will make it stand out and scrutinize it harder. For others? It's all the same, and any name is up for grabs anywhere. There's no right or wrong answer, but there's the answer to your question.

 

Another possibility is the nature of hockey. Hockey, unlike the other big four sports in North America, tends to lean into localized names. Just look at the Original Six. Four of the six O6 teams had very localized names. Whereas early football and baseball names tended to be relatively generic early on. I think that spirit has carried on through newer teams, who see replicating that as a way to gain a feeling of "legitimacy." The Predators were even named after a skeleton that was unearthed during the building of their arena.

So I think that aspect of hockey culture might play into it. You see "kraken," find out where its origins lie, and go "hey, that doesn't fit with Seattle." It doesn't help that other names like Evergreens, Emeralds, Rainers, and Sockeyes all have specific local connections.

 

6 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

I actually like the name, but yeah.  This.

Nah. I have to disagree.

Going "so what nerd?" when someone brings up a legitimate historic fact doesn't discredit an argument. It's a fact that the kraken was a mythological giant fish in the North Atlantic, and only got associated with a squid thanks to the writings of Erik Pontoppidan and Herman Melville. That's just what it is, and you're not changing that by being dismissive. Not unless you're super-proficient in Old Norse and you can find references to tentacles in the original accounts that scholars have been missing all this time