It’s three years away, but Seattle eager for rivalry with Canucks
We are less than three years away from Seattle actually playing NHL games. But that did not stop CEO Tod Leiweke from starting a little trash-talk in what he hopes becomes a friendly rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks.
“I don’t want to send up the flames here because those guys are my friends, but bring it on,” Leiweke said of the Canucks. “We can’t wait. It’s going to be an intense rivalry and it might be the one night I walk in the locker-room and say to the boys, ‘Give it a little more tonight.’”
Seattle is about a two-hour drive from Vancouver, which Leiweke called its “sister city.”
“Vancouver and Seattle share so much in common,” he said. “Two absolutely gorgeous cities right on the water with a backdrop of mountains … there’s going to be a built-in rivalry.”
The NHL is rife with geographic rivals, whether it is Toronto and Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary or Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Until now, Vancouver never really had one.
“I wouldn’t overstate it, but obviously it’s helpful,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. “(Canucks owner) Francesco Aquilini has been clear on the record for years now that he would love an expansion team in Seattle to create that rivalry. The Canucks are excited about it. I know Seattle’s excited about it. It can only help.”
With Seattle now owning an NHL franchise, the next question is whether this will pave the way for the NBA.
“One miracle at a time,” Seattle NHL owner David Bonderman said. “Obviously the city would be enthused to have an NBA team and so would we. There’s plenty of time to work about that as we have an arena to build, we have a team to build and then we’ll come back and see what there is.”
The SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008. While the NBA has hinted at a possible return, it would likely come through relocation, not expansion.
The Seattle Metropolitans played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association from 1915 to 1924, becoming the first U.S.-based team to win the Stanley Cup. But with the NHL already having a Metropolitan Division, it appears that another name will have to be found. There are no shortage of options. According to reports, a lawyer with Oak View Group has registered 38 different domain names, including everything from Eagles and Emeralds to Sea Lions and Totems.
“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,” co-owner Jerry Bruckheimer said. “That’s the daunting challenge that we have, but we know that Seattle has the greatest fans.”
Is the Seattle Kraken, apparently the mayor’s favourite, an actual possibility?
“Every name has a chance right now,” said Bruckheimer, who produced the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.
How did Bruckheimer, who after Tuesday’s meeting was returning to Los Angeles to begin shooting a Top Gun remake, become a hockey fan? He was born into it.
“I grew up in Detroit, my dad took me to Red Wings games and I sat in the rafters there and looked down on some of the great players who were playing in those days,” he said. “I got very excited about the sport. I played it for about a year. When Wayne Gretzky came to L.A., I started taking skating lessons and have been playing ever since. I get up and down the ice as slowly as possible, but I still get there.”
Beginning Wednesday, Seattle’s NHL team will break ground on an ambitious $800-million project to redevelop the outdated KeyArena. Construction is expected to take more than two years, which includes gutting the old rink and digging down 15 feet in order to change the sightlines for hockey.
“While the team might be opening in the fall of 2021, we anticipate the building opening sometime in the first quarter, perhaps March, April,” Leiweke said.