Seattle reveals 13 potential names for its team

In a press conference at the Board of Governors meetings that took place on Tuesday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the arrival of the league’s 32nd team in Seattle. Although Seattle will become the league’s 32nd team in 2021-22, the franchise has no official name. 

Yet. 

An official name unveiling will be released later on in the process, but in the meantime, fans quickly found out through Sportsnet that 13 names that have been registered by the Oak View Group, the company that is currently renovating KeyArena to make it ready for the new NHL franchise. 

Here is the list of 13:

* Rainiers
* Kraken
* Evergreens
* Seals
* Emeralds
* Sea Lions
* Sockeyes
* Whales
* Eagles
* Totems
* Cougars
* Firebirds
* Renegades

Back in 1917, when Seattle previously won the Stanley Cup out of the Pacific Coast League, they were known as the Metropolitans. You can't see the name in the list of registered names seeing that there is a division in the NHL that already goes by that name: it's quite unlikely that the team will take on that name now... 

The Seattle Times recently ran a poll with its readers to see which name is preferred in the city; a total of 146,144 votes were cast, with the Sockeyes (a type of salmon common to the area) winning out over the Totems, with Metropolitans coming in third. Let's hope these fans aren't too upset about the latter name not being in the list of registered domains from the Oak View Group...

“We’re going to listen to our fans and we’re going to do it right and we’re not going to have a time pressure, but it’s something we’re working on each and every day,” said CEO Tod Leiweke. 

Jerry Bruckheimer knows some fans will be disappointed, however, we are sure the disappointment will be topped by the thrill of welcoming an NHL franchise to the city. 

“It’s exciting and daunting and scary and all the things,” Bruckheimer said after the announcement. “You just want to do right for Seattle, and bring great players and hopefully pick a name where we won’t get too many people mad at us. That’s the daunting challenge that we have, but we know that Seattle has the greatest fans.

“We’re going to educate the ones that don’t understand hockey on what a wonderful sport it is.”