There were adult rec leagues, youth programs, and the Seattle Thunderbirds, a junior team in the Western Hockey League.
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Barr had already joined the hockey fold when he moved to Sea ttle in 2004 and found the city teeming with the sport. In those hockey photo cameos, his grin skews just shy of goofy, giddiness schooled into restraint. “John really was the guy that gave it the big push,” says Tim Pipes, owner of the Angry Beaver hockey bar in Greenwood.Īt 48, Barr looks friendly and familiar in the “wait, have we met?” sort of way.
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“I only did a little bit.” By “little bit” he means founding an email listserv called NHL to Seattle, which he parlayed into a blog and community movement that many credit with bringing a professional team here. “It was incredible to be acknowledged at that level,” he says. But in a league that keeps circling the rink on diversity and getting nowhere closer to the goal, can the Kraken prove that hockey is, truly, for everyone?īarr isn’t ashamed to admit it the message nearly made him cry. The Kraken front office has leaned hard into Seattle’s oft-touted progressive identity with a slate of notable hires and early outreach efforts in nontraditional hockey communities. Fortuitously for the league, the new team may illuminate the path to a more inclusive future-or at the very least, an emergency exit from a PR nightmare. When the puck drops at Climate Pledge Arena on October 23, it’ll be a manifestation of pure devotion from hockey fans in this town, the homegrown and the re-rooted. After a years-long crusade, one that culminated in 10,000 season ticket commitments in 12 minutes, the NHL granted our city its 32nd franchise. Of the “Big Four” sports leagues in the country, the NHL generates the lowest revenue and is the least diverse, with recent incidents of racism and misogyny festering into public view. The target market doesn’t match the shifting demographics of North America. The NHL’s arduous growth spurt of my formative years has been saddled with growing pains, stagnated by player lockouts, and erased from ESPN for 15 years by a TV-deal dustup. My conversion to the church of hockey isn’t unique but it’s increasingly rare. Now some three decades later, living in Seattle with two daughters of my own, it’s an indelible part of me. Hockey itself became something that mattered, something that made a little Asian girl growing up in California feel like she belonged. For the bearded men relinquishing their blood, sweat, and teeth, all for the right to hoist a 34-pound trophy above their heads. For the skill and the speed and the sprawled-out saves. Soon I was watching hockey, not only to beg time with my dad but also to catch the filthy dekes and body-crushing checks. I learned the rules, the rivalries, the players. Stick taps: Tapping of a hockey stick on the ice or against the boards to signify applause.įace wash: When a player rubs a smelly glove in their opponent’s face usually occurs in a scrum or preceding a fight. The National Hockey League was growing up and, weekend after weekend, I was too. In 1998, the league launched its Hockey Is for Everyone youth program, a bid to encourage inclusivity and diversity in a sport dominated by white men on the ice and in the crowd. Disney’s The Mighty Ducks spawned two sequels and the name for the NHL’s 26th franchise in Anaheim. The National Hockey League had embarked on a “Sunbelt expansion,” adding five teams, including my hometown San Jose Sharks, over just three years. In the early ’90s, when I was a kid, that sport was often hockey.
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During weekend lulls when he’d flick on the TV to relax with whatever sport happened to be airing, I’d clamber onto the couch cushion next to him, happy to be an interloper in his attempt at parental relaxation. After all, scratchy beard kisses before bed hardly counted as quality time. I viewed Saturday and Sunday as opportunities for more. “ Bào qĭlái” he’d singsong in Mandarin-“tuck you in”-before frenetically bundling me up under the covers. On the rare occasions he did return in time to say goodnight, I’d revel in the special tradition he reserved for me. He worked long hours some 20 miles away from our home in San Jose, so breakfast and bedtime often came and went without him. Growing up, I rarely saw my dad on weekdays.