SoundCheck - A Seattle Hockey Blog

I was at a kings game and I saw the Kings St Patricks Day Jersey. It has plaid on it and it doesn't look terrible! Everyone is going to be making jokes about how Seattle is associated with grunge. They might as well lean into it and have at least a third jersey which incorporates plaid! Also they should do a throwback night to the barber poll striped jersey!! Make this happen! 

After much fanfare including reportedly selling over 10,000 season tickets in under 12 minutes the NHL in Seattle will commence in the 2020-2021 season. A bit of history: when the Seattle Metropolitans formed in 1915 Frank and Lester Patrick stocked the team by offering salaries to players from the Toronto Blueshirts. They signed Frank Foyston, Hap Holmes, Jack Walker, Eddie Carpenter, and Cully Wilson. They won the Stanley Cup two years later in 1917. There is always the constant threat that a team might go the route of offering sheeting RFA stars. To this end  players like Elias Pettersson, Andrei Scechnikov, Filip Zadina, Rasmus Dahlin, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi are available to be offer sheeted. However offer sheeting comes at a high price - especially for an expansion team just starting off. This leads to looking at which unrestricted free agents are available. Here is a list of some unrestricted free agents available for the 2021/22 season. Alex Ovechkin Kevin Sh...

In the words of  Roz Doyle  "Are you kidding?  This is Seattle.  It rains nine months out of the year.  We take our indoor sports very seriously" .  Given the climate and population of Seattle it would seem that the city would be fertile ground for a NHL team. However, we are just now making plans for the start of a Seattle hockey team in 2021. Why? What's taken so long? Why has a city which successfully supports two major junior hockey teams in it's metropolitan area been unable to get a NHL franchise? The place to start with hockey in Seattle would be with the Patrick brothers. The brothers were former hockey players who played for various teams including Montreal Wanderers, the Renfrew Millionaires and the Montreal Athletic Association. In 1911 they moved out west and formed the Pacific Coast Hockey League. An important thing to remember is that hockey was a lot different then than it is now. The goalie didn't leave his feet to make saves, t...