by Jayson Boyd

A couple of weeks ago, the National Hockey League awarded Seattle with its 32nd franchise. The team, as yet unnamed, will begin play in a renovated Seattle Center Arena (formerly known as the Key Arena) in October of 2021.

For many in this area, hockey is a largely unknown sport. I was turned on to it in the sixth grade after attending a Seattle Thunderbirds game as part of my friend Gus’s birthday party. The Thunderbirds are a major junior-level team that used to play at the Seattle Center, but now play their games in Kent. All three of us at that game were so enthralled that we decided to get rollerblades and start playing street hockey, and we did just that. Our group slowly grew in size, and our pick-up games, usually on the Gatewood Elementary playground. Even got a write-up in the West Seattle Herald sports section.

Gus and I made the decision to start playing organized ice hockey, which, in those days meant frequent trips to Shoreline, Kirkland, Edmonds and Tacoma. Youth hockey, in this area, requires a significant commitment. Gus – and his parents – only lasted one season before hanging up the skates; but for me, I was hooked.

My father was every bit as into sports as I am, but he knew nothing about hockey and so I had to teach myself. I purchased most of my gear using my wages from my Seattle Times paper route. It took what amounted to a small fortune to a middle-school kid, but it was my thing, what could I do?

Unfortunately, hockey is the kind of sport in which you practically have to be born and raised on ice in order to really excel. A high school buddy of mine grew up playing it, and he spent just about every weekend somewhere up in Canada – talk about commitment!

Yeah, I’m excited to have an NHL team here in Seattle. But it’s not as much about going to the games as it is the potential to increase the sport’s popularity in this area. I learned so much from playing hockey, and I’m talking about lessons for life. Sure, hockey is known for the fighting, but playing the sport actually teaches you when it’s appropriate, and it’s never about hurting anyone – it’s really about enforcing order, decorum if you will. For example, if you shoot the puck at your opponent’s net after the whistle blows, you can expect someone to get in your face about it, because you could injure the goalie. It’s not actually written into the rules. It’s not an actual penalty levied by the referees. It’s an unwritten rule, and, when you really think about it, there are as many of these in everyday life as there are written ones. And the enforcement is often of an extra-judicial sort.

The announcement from the NHL wasn’t unexpected. In fact, Seattle’s hockey fans have been debating for months as to what the new team should be called. Since this is an opinion column, I’ll state that I’m in the fish camp – “Sockeyes” and “Steelheads” are two possibilities that have been proposed. Way back in 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans won hockey’s highest honor, the Stanley Cup. They were the first U.S.-based team to win this storied trophy. There are some that think we should revive that moniker, for the sake of nostalgia. Others reminisce about the Seattle Totems, a professional team that played between 1944 and 1975. But this could be a problematic team name, seeing as how the Coast Salish tribes that inhabited this area didn’t actually make totem poles, a fact that is increasingly coming into the consciousness of Seattleites. At the end of the day, as long as there are no nods to coffee, Bigfoot or grunge music, I’ll be happy.

It’s an exciting time to be a hockey fan in Seattle, and I sincerely hope that you’ll join us if you haven’t already. Take your kids to a game; Thunderbirds games are affordable and there’s free parking. But if you do take your kids, just know that you may find yourself spending your future weekends lugging gear, taping sticks and tightening skates – you won’t regret it.

Ballard News Tribune

Highline Times

Robinson Papers

West Seattle Herald

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