“We live for hockey”: Climate Pledge Arena fans show their commitment to Kraken on the opening night

For a moment, it seemed that these Cheers might last a while. The crowd at the Climate Pledge Arena had been waiting for it for 19 minutes and 57 seconds, the city of Seattle much longer.

When defender Vince Dunn scored the first set of the goal with 4.6 seconds left, he wrote the latest and one of the toughest pages in Seattle’s sports history: the first Kraken goal in its glittering new home.

It was a moment when everything around this team and arena was built towards. It was the moment when the project finally felt complete. By then, the NHL had really arrived in Seattle.

“It’s just surreal,” longtime hockey fan Alex Erler said of the lower meeting of the Climate Pledge Arena. “That’s the word for it.”

Saturday’s home game, a 4-2 loss to Vancouver, was the culmination of years of stress, struggle and strife. There were polarizing discussions about where Seattle should build a new arena. And after Oak View Group won a bid to renovate KeyArena, the budget rose from $ 650 million to more than $ 1.1 billion.

There were delays in construction. There was COVID-19 chaos. There were endless obstacles. But as Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke said before the game ceremonies, “We did it!”

You have to think that most people at Climate Pledge Arena had been waiting for this moment for years. Long before the arena was built, Kraken’s season tickets were sold out within minutes of the sale.

Fans were especially committed to their new NHL team on Saturday. The average ticket price was $ 601, according to ESPN, at the time of the broadcast. It’s the highest average ticket price for all sporting events in the city since 2010 – and includes two Seahawks NFC championships. There are no indications that this would be a relaxed fan base.

The sustainability of enthusiasm depends to a large extent on whether Kraken remains competitive. But so far, Seattle feels like a legal hockey city.

“We live for hockey. We’ve been waiting for hockey for so long, ”fan JF Desagne said. “It’s in our blood.”

It felt like it on Saturday. Rarely does noise ease. There were clears when a goalkeeper by Kraken scored or Philipp Grubauer blocked it. Officials got passionate nonsense when the audience felt they had made the wrong call. And the stars were in the building.

Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife Ciara are greeted by a menacing cheer when they were shown on the big screen. Friends Seahawks Bobby Wagner and DK Metcalf received similar treatment, as did Storm star Sue Bird and rapper Macklemore. Former Sonic Gary Payton appeared on video, trying to hype the audience. The former Seahawk Marshawn Lynch also appeared on screen. The city and its most prominent faces are all-in at this club.

Unfortunately, Kraken was unable to produce the desired result. Mark Giordano took the team lead 2-1 five minutes in the third set, but the Canucks scored three more goals in the next 14 minutes and eventually won 3-2. That marks a trend for Kraken, who has struggled third and is now 1-4-1 this season.

“It’s disappointing. It’s a really tough league not to keep the gas on for 60 minutes, ”Dunn said. – In many of these games we have given ourselves a chance to win, but it is not good enough.

There was no guarantee that Kraken would withstand severe growth pains during its opening season. The Golden Knights of Las Vegas always made it to the Stanley Cup final in their first year in 2017-2018. It hasn’t been a good start for Seattle, but as Dunn said, the team has given itself a chance to win.

The team doesn’t have to worry – at least for now – there is fan support. The Climate Pledge Arena is a true home-ice advantage that reflects other Seattle Sports Venues.

What did you like about the atmosphere of the evening? Grubauer was asked.

“I love it. I think the atmosphere was amazing in the first game. Unbelievable,” he said. “We expected it based on what we’ve heard about the Seahawks games and other Seattle games.”

During the break of the first episode, the viewer had to answer five yes or no questions to win the prize. The first four were related to hockey, and then: “Does Kraken already have the best fans in the NHL?”

This got highlighted yes and another from the crowd. Is that still true? Probably not. But while you were in the building on Saturday, it would be hard to say otherwise.