NHL's Seattle franchise teases big announcement, sparks final round of speculation

The Seattle Sockeyes? Seattle Salmon? Seattle Kraken?

Those are a few of the sea-related monikers being tossed around consistently as potential nicknames for the NHL’s 32nd franchise since the city of Seattle was officially granted an expansion club in late 2018. On Wednesday, after months and months of speculation, the organization’s Twitter account finally dropped a teaser video, giving the hockey world a chance to, umm, speculate!

Only for one more night, though — mere hours until we learn the sweet, sweet truth — as the team is expected to officially announce its name, potentially along with a reveal of its colours, logo and uniform design mock-ups on Thursday morning.

The video at least lets us narrow it down a little bit as far as the theme goes. Clearly hinting at a sea or ocean-derived moniker and revealing a potential orange-aqua-blue-ish (?) colour scheme, names like the Sockeyes, Salmon, Whales and Kraken all seem to be in the running based on meticulous analysis of this 59-second social video.

Aside from those listed above, there were another 10-12 names in the running back when the city was granted its franchise, including the Metropolitans, Sasquatch, Totems, Emeralds, Firebirds, Eagles, Seals, Sea Lions, and some other weird nonsense.

“Totems” seemed to be the favourite early on, at least as far as Bovada odds were concerned, but the sea creatures have really pulled ahead over the last year-plus.

There seems to be a lot of “Sasquatch” propaganda still lingering around hockey circles as well, though nothing in this video hints at the franchise going that way.

I must admit my Yeti knowledge is suspect and out-of-date at this time, so I may have missed something there.

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