Franchise making impact in community, will host Winter Classic on Jan. 1
©<\/span> Patrick McDermott\/NHLI via Getty Images
SEATTLE —<\/strong> Gary Bettman opened the NHL Board of Governors meeting with a trivia question. Did anyone know what happened five years ago Monday?
The NHL Commissioner looked at Seattle Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke, who knew the answer, of course. It was Dec. 4, 2018, when the Board of Governors voted to award an expansion franchise to Seattle.
Leiweke spoke a few words of appreciation.
After the meeting, the Kraken were to host a dinner at a venue near Climate Pledge Arena.
\u201cIt\u2019s very special for us to have the Board of Governors meeting here in Seattle today,\u201d Kraken co-owner Samantha Holloway told NHL.com. \u201cIt\u2019s been so meaningful for my family and the whole ownership group to be able to bring the NHL to Seattle.\u201d
The Board of Governors usually gathers at this time each year at a resort in a warm location. But it\u2019s at a downtown hotel here this time, because the NHL originally promised the Seattle ownership group a meeting to show off the new market and couldn\u2019t have it due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
\u201cNow instead of telling them what\u2019s going to be, we can tell them what\u2019s already been done, and we want every one of these owners who supported this and voted for it to share the pride of what\u2019s happened here,\u201d Leiweke told NHL.com.
Obviously, the Board of Governors was confident Seattle would succeed. The vote was unanimous, for good reason. Oak View Group, the company that would turn the former KeyArena into Climate Pledge Arena, received 32,000 season-ticket deposits in little more than a day after an online portal opened at 10 a.m. PT on March 2, 2018.
But five years ago Monday, the team had a handful of employees. The groundbreaking ceremony for the arena wouldn\u2019t come until the next day. Ground wouldn\u2019t be broken for Kraken Community Iceplex, the three-sheet practice facility, until later. There was no name, no logo, no general manager, no coach, no players.
No one had heard of COVID-19.
\u201cThis was a big bet the owners made, and they made it based on the fact that the city needed a world-class arena, that fans would see this game and fall in love with it, that players would come and feel pride in pulling on the jersey,\u201d Leiweke said. \u201cAnd all that\u2019s happened.\u201d
The Seattle ownership group made a big bet too, starting with an expansion fee of $650 million and continuing with many millions of dollars more to build the arena, the practice facility and other infrastructure.
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t for the faint of heart, but our investors believed,\u201d Leiweke said. \u201cFor many of them, they\u2019re on the journey of a lifetime. This has just been so fun and exhilarating. \u2026 But it\u2019s also given me a few of these gray hairs.\u201d
The pandemic added a significant degree of difficulty for everyone involved. Still, they built the arena — detaching the historic roof of the former KeyArena, propping it up on supports, demolishing everything underneath it, building a state-of-the-art showplace and putting the roof back on. They built the practice facility, the organization and the brand.
©<\/span> Christopher Mast\/NHLI via Getty Images
The Kraken finished 30th in the 32-team NHL in their inaugural season of 2021-22. But they earned the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference last season, upset the defending champion Colorado Avalanche in seven games in the first round and took the Dallas Stars to seven games in the second.
\u201cThe market has responded beautifully,\u201d Stars chairman Jim Lites said. \u201cIt\u2019s a cosmopolitan, great, iconic American city, and it fits for us. It\u2019s been great. I\u2019m thrilled with the success of the expansion here.\u201d
The Kraken are 8-12-6 this season, fifth in the Pacific Division. But they will host the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic at T-Mobile Park on Jan. 1. Their merchandise is flying off the shelves — particularly the Winter Classic sweater, a nod to the Seattle Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, who made Seattle the first U.S. city to win the Stanley Cup in 1917. The practice facility is packed most nights, as are other rinks around the area.
\u201cWe feel tremendously honored to be part of this League,\u201d Holloway said. \u201cWe\u2019re proud of what we\u2019ve done. It\u2019s been a collective effort, and we\u2019re excited for what\u2019s ahead.\u201d
Leiweke said it has been a lot of work, but there is still a lot of work to do.\u00a0
\u201cYou don\u2019t wave a wand,\u201d Leiweke said. \u201cIt just takes hard work and perseverance. But so much of this is better than we could have even imagined — the impact we\u2019ve had on the community, the number of kids now skating and dreaming of being a Kraken player somebody, the success of our Community Iceplex.
\u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of really positive things that have happened, and we\u2019ve only just begun.\u201d<\/p>\n