NHL’s New Seattle Kraken Announce Name & Logos

[VancouverFan69]

Seattle was long overdue for an NHL franchise and the franchise blew it big time. Bushleague and gimmicky name and a bland navy and red colour scheme(only the seafoam adds a little distinctiveness). Only to cater to a young and radically progressive demographic instead of going with a far better and a safer choice of a name and a distinctive colour scheme(example: two shades of green) that would go over well with fan bases of all ages - from those who followed the WHL Totems to today's youth.

 

Extremely disappointing. Seattle's NHL franchise has lost all my interest. I despised the Minnesota "Wild" name from Day 1 in 2000 and 20 years later, my feelings and thoughts on the "Wild" name are no different. The same will hold true with the Kraken in 20+ years.

[gosioux76]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

I doubt the minor league baseball history or the Revolutionary War connotations had much, if anything, to do with the team's success. My point was merely that the name "Hornets" wasn't an out there name for a team from Charlotte at the time. It was likely that the city's first pro team, regardless of sport, would have been named "Hornets" just due to how ingrained the name was in the city's sports culture up to that point.

It’s true that the Revolutionary War link hasn’t been associated with the NBA Hornets brand, but @IceCap is also correct that the Hornets name has a common enough thread in Charlotte sports history for it not to be considered novel. 

In addition to being the name of a minor league baseball club, it was also the name of Charlotte’s team in the short-lived World Football League. 
 

 

[Gothamite]

Boy, I go away for a couple hours and this thread gets all negative and nasty.

 

So I'll counter.  Having let it sit for a couple hours... I like this identity more.

 

I love that their primary is a monogram.   I think the secondary Space Anchor logo is brilliant.  I love the color scheme, uniquely theirs and yet appropriate for the locale.  I love that they don't have any white on their home uniform.  This is already one of the best jerseys in the NHL.

 

 

I think they knocked the thing out of the park, and can't wait to see them on the ice.  Personally, I'm not a fan of being a fan of team you don't have any real geographical connection with, but given my local options here in New York I might have to make an exception.

 

And while the plural of anecdote is still not data, I know four people in Seattle (well, okay, three in Seattle and one in Tacoma) who bought season tickets today on the strength of this unveiling.  Sure seems to be resonating with the locals.

[M4One]

3 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Hmu when the Cubs, or any MLB/NBA/NHL team, break into a *cute* game of limbo following a win

 

 

 

What a bunch of jerks.  What's next?  Banging on trash cans after a win?

[ScubaSteve]

11 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

Only to cater to a young and radically progressive demographic instead of going with a far better and a safer choice of a name and a distinctive colour scheme(example: two shades of green) that would go over well with fan bases of all ages - from those who followed the WHL Totems to today's youth.

 

Wow you really had to go and make it political and not fun. I guess congrats?

[gosioux76]

6 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Boy, I go away for a couple hours and this thread gets all negative and nasty.

 

So I'll counter.  Having let it sit for a couple hours... I like this identity more.

 

I love that their primary is a monogram.   I think the secondary Space Anchor logo is brilliant.  I love the color scheme, uniquely theirs and yet appropriate for the locale.  I love that they don't have any white on their home uniform.  This is already one of the best jerseys in the NHL.

 

 

I think they knocked the thing out of the park, and can't wait to see them on the ice.  Personally, I'm not a fan of being a fan of team you don't have any real geographical connection with, but given my local options here in New York I might have to make an exception.

 

And while the plural of anecdote is still not data, I know four people in Seattle (well, okay, three in Seattle and one in Tacoma) who bought season tickets today on the strength of this unveiling.  Sure seems to be resonating with the locals.

It really is stunning what this club has pulled off. I could not fathom a name like Kraken being plausible. There seemed no way that the visuals could be strong enough to make that name respectable. 
 

Man, was I wrong.

[gosioux76]

23 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

Seattle was long overdue for an NHL franchise and the franchise blew it big time. Bushleague and gimmicky name and a bland navy and red colour scheme(only the seafoam adds a little distinctiveness). Only to cater to a young and radically progressive demographic instead of going with a far better and a safer choice of a name and a distinctive colour scheme(example: two shades of green) that would go over well with fan bases of all ages - from those who followed the WHL Totems to today's youth.

 

Extremely disappointing. Seattle's NHL franchise has lost all my interest. I despised the Minnesota "Wild" name from Day 1 in 2000 and 20 years later, my feelings and thoughts on the "Wild" name are no different. The same will hold true with the Kraken in 20+ years.

This is the second time this week in which I’ve seen a preference for something “safer.” (The Charlotte MLS club was praised by many for “playing it safe” with the choice of Charlotte FC.)

 

I just cannot understand how “safe” can translate into anything other than “boring,”

 

Now, I didn’t favor Kraken, but I at least give them credit for taking a chance on something bold and developing  a brand that supports it.

[DEAD!]

7 minutes ago, ScubaSteve said:

 

Wow you really had to go and make it political and not fun. I guess congrats?

 

I will say this much, I'd rather be a radical progressive than a curmudgeon conservative 

[DEAD!]

1 minute ago, gosioux76 said:

This is the second time this week in which I’ve seen a preference for something “safer.” (The Charlotte MLS club was praised by many for “playing it safe” with the choice of Charlotte FC.)

 

I just cannot understand how “safe” can translate into anything other than “boring,”

 

Now, I didn’t favor Kraken, but I at least give them credit for taking a chance on something bold and devolving a brand that supports it.

A Vancouver fan should know a thing or two about trying something "bold" 

[VancouverFan69]

9 minutes ago, ScubaSteve said:

 

Wow you really had to go and make it political and not fun. I guess congrats?

 

Nothing political. Progressive as in opposite of traditional.

[IceCap]

5 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

I just cannot understand how “safe” can translate into anything other than “boring,”

I disagree. So much.

[sky1324]

26 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

It’s true that the Revolutionary War link hasn’t been associated with the NBA Hornets brand, but @IceCap is also correct that the Hornets name has a common enough thread in Charlotte sports history for it not to be considered novel. 

In addition to being the name of a minor league baseball club, it was also the name of Charlotte’s team in the short-lived World Football League. 
 

 

While the initial NBA Hornets brand was anything but traditional, the name is as associated with Charlotte sports as, well, honestly I can't think of anything else. The first recorded use of "Hornets" as a nickname for a sports team in Charlotte was in 1892, before becoming the de facto nickname for baseball teams for the better part of 70-ish years. The WFL took the name upon renaming the Stars with a decidedly more "normal" color scheme before the NBA's Hornets began about 10 years later. In fact, the only reason Hornets wasn't used by the MiLB team was because George Shinn also owned that and renamed them the Knights. It was obvious that the first pro sports team in Charlotte should've been the Hornets, no matter the sport. 

[IceCap]

2 hours ago, El Scorcho said:

 

Maybe it's different in North America, but from an Australian perspective, the Raptors have always been a pretty popular team, certainly more popular than the other expansion teams I listed. I agree that winning (or in the case of Basketball, simply having a star player) trumps everything else.

There's an entire subset of Toronto sports fans who have wanted to ditch the Raptors name in favour of "Huskies" (Toronto's NBA team way back when) since day one. And the team almost did in 2014. A complete rebrand was on the table. Rumour has it they were going to with "Huskies" until Drake of all people talked them out of it. The "Huskies" rebrand was supposed to be accompanies by the "We the North" campaign, which was instead paired with a new logo that significantly downplayed the dinosaur connections.

The calls for "Huskies" only really went away after they won the NBA Championship.

[Gothamite]

But they did go away.

[IceCap]

16 minutes ago, QCS said:

It was obvious that the first pro sports team in Charlotte should've been the Hornets, no matter the sport. 

Yeah, that's my point. "Hornets" isn't fun or quirky as a team name in any context. It's a pretty traditional name all around. And it's a super traditional name in Charlotte.

Sure, the team created a trend by kicking off the teal and purple wave that would wash over a good chunk of the NBA. Still? Everything from the name to the logo was very traditional and safe.

Yes @El Scorcho the original Hornets logo was NOT unique or quirky. It was the mascot with a basketball. That's very traditional by NBA standards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only thing that broke the mould with the Hornets was the colour scheme. The name and logo were both very traditional by the standards of the locale and league.

 

9 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

But they did go away.

I'm unsure you can count on winning a championship as a cure-all. They're hard to come by

 

I'm just saying, what happens once the RELEASE THE KRAKEN jokes get old and the new car smell is gone? And they have to try and move tickets for a Tuesday night game in November against Calgary? There's something to be said for a timeless identity (or "boring" as some insist) that's not dependent on pop culture for relevance. Pop culture is, by nature, fleeting.

 

[Corvus]

So,  I've been listening to a hockey podcast out of Seattle for about a year now, one of the hosts is one of the people who started the community push for a team in Seattle. They released a podcast with their reactions to the name tonight, for those who might want to hear the local reaction. Local reaction in Seattle seems quite positive, which is of course the thing that really matters. 

 

https://nhltoseattle.com/2020/07/23/sound-of-hockey-episode-96-lets-go-kraken/

 

As for the appropriateness of the team name,  Pirates of the Caribbean being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is an investor in the team is a pretty obvious explanation. 

 

[Brian in Boston]

2 hours ago, darkpiranha said:

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.

"The name Hornets has a historical significance in our area," said Shinn, who recalled that during the Revolutionary War a British commander referred to the area around Charlotte as a nest of hornets." - New York Times, June 6, 1967  

Pushed in the actual branding? No. That said, the franchise's owner - George Shinn - did announce the specific reasoning for the name during the press conference revealing it to the public. The team's fanbase certainly knew the significance of the moniker, as its selection was the result of a Name-the-Team contest which saw Hornets best five other candidates - Knights, Cougars, Spirit, Crowns, and Stars.   

[IceCap]

1 minute ago, Corvus said:

As for the appropriateness of the team name,  Pirates of the Caribbean being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is an investor in the team is a pretty obvious explanation. 

I'm going to echo @Brian in Boston here.

Do you think the team will play up mentions of the kraken in Bruckheimer's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest or the Clash of the Titans film with the "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" line that Bruckheimer had no part in? 

[Cujo]

2 minutes ago, IceCap said:

 

 

The only thing that broke the mould with the Hornets was the colour scheme. The name and logo were both very traditional by the standards of the locale and league.

 

Truth be told, we should be comparing 'Kraken' to Charlotte's other basketball team...

 

[mcj882000]

Count me on Team Negative I guess, because I think the name absolutely sucks. The logo's merely passable IMO and I love the jerseys and colour scheme they picked, but the name's awful.

On the bright side I guess we'll really find out how much of a shelf life a meme name has; personally I give it 5 years, tops, before even their own fanbase gets tired of the name and the jokes surrounding it and wants something new instead.