Meet the Kraken

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In the summer of 2020, the Seattle Kraken released a promotional video featuring gray-scale roiling seas, mountain peaks, and the city skyline, with its eponymous mascot—a tentacled sea monster—an unseen, looming presence.

The Kraken’s maritime origin story is inspired by the very real Giant Pacific octopus found in Puget Sound—local legend has it that a 600-pound creature lurks amid the ruins of the collapsed Tacoma Narrows bridge. Seattle’s first major-league hockey team since 1975 had a devoted fan base long before its official launch. The franchise broke records in 2018 for deposits on season tickets made in a single day, and two years later, with 215,000 votes, the Kraken officially became a team name born of the fans. The signature ice-blue “S” (a nod to the Seattle Metropolitans, the city’s original professional hockey team) began to crop up across the city and beyond—this past summer, the team’s flag flew atop both Mount Rainier and Mount Everest.