Seattle Kraken To Break Ice In 2021-22 - ESPN https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29524234/seattle-kraken-take-ice-2021-22-nhl-season The Kraken has been released. Seattle's NHL team, which will make its debut in the 2021-22 season, on Thursday finally announced its name -- the Kraken -- as well as a color scheme: icy blue and navy blue with sharp red accents. The NHL officially named Seattle as its 32nd team in 2018 for a $650 million expansion fee. "It's a very unique and unusual name in sports, because almost all sport franchises end with an 'S,'" Andy Jassy, a part-owner of the team, told ESPN. "There are a lot of obvious connections to Seattle -- part because of our maritime history; part of because we have so much water around us -- but there is longtime folklore in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest of this mystical Kraken creature that lives just below the surface of the sea, which really captivated people for many years. That mystique, that intensity, and that power that people have long talked about with the Kraken is what we expect our NHL team to play with." Seattle had considered naming the team the Metropolitans, but according to Jassy that choice was met with "reticence" by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who didn't want to change the name of one of the NHL's four divisions, the Metropolitan Division. The news comes one month after Amazon secured naming rights for Seattle's downtown arena that will house the Kraken, as well as the WNBA's Storm. However the company's name won't appear on the building. Instead, the arena will be called Climate Pledge Arena. https://news.sportslogos.net/2020/07/23/nhls-new-seattle-kraken-announce-name-logos/
That's a bummer. I like Kraken, but I'd much rather the team be named the Metropolitans due to the history of that name. The good news is that it seems like the Kraken are leaning hard into the history of the Metropolitans, so that works.. It's also been almost 100 years since the Metropolitans were a team, so there aren't the deep emotional bonds like there is with the Sounders and the Sonics brands.
Can anyone say Cleveland: Boston Globe Sports @BGlobeSports 3h Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Red Sox and Liverpool, is adding LeBron James as a partner, and has approved a deal that will jump-start a plan to acquire more teams. https://trib.al/GGvu0mG
The NHL is preparing a contingency that could relocate the Arizona Coyotes to Utah as soon as next season, sources told ESPN.