Release the Kraken! On Thursday, Seattle's new NHL franchise unveiled its team name and a line of merchandising on their team site.
The Kraken, who will be the NHL's 32nd franchise, will take the ice beginning in the 2021-2022 season. Kraken co-owner Jay Deutsch explained to Cheddar how the franchise came up with its name.
"The fans came out with over 1,000 names suggested. We did a poll locally a year-and-a-half ago." Deutsch said. "Throughout this entire process, the Kraken kept going to the front. That's what we're so excited about. We listened, we heard what the community wanted, we then developed a logo that we felt would be incredible."
Although the team won't be taking the ice for more than a year, they are already pushing merchandising online at releasethekrakenstore.com. Deutsch said that not only is merchandise "hot off the presses," but proceeds are also going to a great cause.
"All net proceeds are going to charity in the local area for youth care and for other community charities that are embedded in taking care of the youth through these COVID times and dealing with bringing the community together around our new mark."
Deutsch also said making the merchandising exclusive to the club for the first month was important for their charitable mission.
"Instead of letting everybody sell it, we said for 30 days, let's take the profits and put it right back into our community, and that's what we did."
The Kraken will be playing at the currently-under-construction Climate Pledge Arena, named by Amazon, which will be the first zero-carbon arena in the world powered exclusively by renewable energy. In addition to playing in such an environmentally-friendly stadium, Deutsch, a Seattle native, says the arena will present an intimidating presence to opponents due to being partially underground.
"It's like a pit. It's almost like a lair. The Kraken's lair you're going to come into." Deutsch added, "It's going to be like fans are on top of the ice. This is going to be, whether you are a fan saying 'I want to go experience this,' or you are the Krakens that are going to come, we are going to release fury on our opponents."
Speaking of fury, Deutsch mentioned he has already been hearing trash talk from nearby regional opponents. But the Kraken co-owner isn't backing down.
"The Kraken's not afraid of a Canuck or a Shark, let's just say that."
Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Beyond the Spotlight,' a biography series about the intriguing people who capture our attention, fill our social feeds, and shape pop culture.
"Anything Is Possible," a documentary about NBA superstar Kevin Garnett recounting his career from being drafted out of high school to a championship with the Boston Celtics, is set to premiere on Showtime. Executive producer Marc Levin and co-directors Daniel Levin and Eric Newman joined Cheddar to provide some background on the project and discuss Garnett's legacy. With KG considered a pioneer for modern NBA draftees straight out of high school (the fifth pick in 1995), the filmmakers also discussed the possibility of the league reversing course on its current rule that requires a player to be at least 19-years-old and a year removed from high school to play.
Professional sports is facing a reckoning right now over several stories painting an ugly picture of a toxic work environment, encompassing multiple teams in multiple leagues and dealing with different issues.
This week, the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks ousted their general manager and senior director of hockey operations after an investigation confirmed former player Kyle Beach's claims that the team's former video coach Brad Aldrich sexual assaulted him back in 2010, with upper management ignoring his claims until after the team won the Stanley Cup that season. Last night, Joel Quenneville, now the coach of the Florida Panthers but Chicago's coach that season, stepped down from his post.
This comes just a few weeks after the NFL was rocked by leaked emails showing now-former Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden using racist, sexist and homophobic language. He resigned soon after the emails came to light. We can't forget, though, that those emails come from a much broader investigation of the toxic work environment in the offices of the Washington Football Team. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week the league wouldn't publicly release anything from its investigation of the team, but lawyers for many of the women interviewed in the case say they want a public report.
And last January, just one month after hiring him, the New York Mets had to fire then-General manager Jared Porter, who admitted to sending explicit, unsolicited texts and images to a female reporter in 2016 when he worked for the Chicago Cubs. ESPN had been in possession of the texts since 2017, but the woman in question asked the network not to run the story out of fear her career would be harmed. She only reached back out to ESPN after she left the field of journalism altogether. Porter has been banned from the sport through next season.
If you believe in the phrase "where there's smoke, there's fire," professional sports is a five-alarm blaze.
Julie DiCaro, senior writer and editor at Deadspin, joins None of the Above to discuss.
Jill and Carlo discuss the scenes of joy at American airports as borders reopen, another tool in the Covid toolbox, the latest in the Astroworld crowd crush tragedy and more.
Gaming technology studio Mythical Games recently raised $150 million in a round led by Andreesen Horowitz, bringing Mythical's valuation to above unicorn status at $1.2 billion. Mythical Games' mission is to create a new generation of gaming with play-to-earn games that allow players to play to win actual cryptocurrency. Now the company is taking it to another level with NFT technology, allowing players to play with characters they can truly own. Mythical Games CEO John Linden joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Evan Vandenberg, the founder and CEO of Dibbs, a sports card trading platform, joined Cheddar to break down how his company allows sports fans to buy and sell fractions of sports cards. The physical trading cards are typically held in a vault while fans are provided with a digital representation of that card that they can go on to sell or even buy more fractions of the item. Vanderberg also talked about the company's $13 million Series A funding round and investments from major sports figures like the NBA's Chris Paul and NFL's DeAndre Hopkins.
A Freitag pod with Carlo and Baker, talking about the upcoming federal vax-or-test deadline, the most shocking upset of this week's elections, an incredible story of selflessness and Love, Hate, Ate.
