Upisode 24: Inveterate hockey fans Jackson Taylor and Doug Abbott swung by the bookstore late at night to rap about the soon-to-be-named NHL team everyone expects to be playing home games in Seattle Center by 2020 or 2021. They discussed the importance of alliteration, clever regional wordplay, and, of course, callbacks to historical team names and local landmarks. Early candidates like “The Seattle Freeze” and “The Cascadia Kraken” were examined but ultimately discarded for the consensus top choices, which the Oak Group should immediately trademark and pursue.
About Jackson and Doug
UpZones’ resident wiseman and wiseacre, Doug Abbott is founder and President of DouglasMDigital, they specialize in providing top agency-level strategy & execution for small and medium-sized businesses, especially focusing on direct-response campaigns.
Jackson B. Taylor, despite having a presidential-sounding name, Jackson isn’t even a Senator. He does know a great deal about the Ottowa Senators, however, and his unique, cutting insights into sports culture make him an excellent analyst for the podcast. A successful marketer and policy expert, Jackson is making his first appearance on UpZones.
About Hockey in Seattle
Back before there was a single, monolithic NHL and various leagues fought it out for supremacy, The Seattle Metropolitans were the first team from “the States” to win the Stanley Cup, in 1917. The team enjoyed an exciting ten-year run at the edge of the American experiment until disbanding for financial reasons in 1925; during that run, the team featured a jaw-dropping five hall-of-fame players, an incredible clip for a young hockey squad.
The Seattle area has hosted a number of minor league teams since, including the Totems and the Thunderbirds, and the and Everett Silvertips, but no major-league teams. In April 1974, Seattle and Denver were conditionally granted NHL franchises; Seattle’s never came to fruition because of the instability of the “Western League,” the regional minor league operating in the area (according to season ticket promotions, the team would have kept the WHL name of Totems). A Seattle group later made a bid on an expansion franchise in 1990, but the bid failed over the financial terms the NHL demanded. The SuperSonics basketball team managed the arena and would not offer a share of suite revenues considered necessary for the NHL team’s success. The businessmen who wanted to operate the potential NHL team were unwilling to pay the $50 million expansion fee imposed by the NHL, and their bid was rejected. More recently the Seattle area grew very excited (with no small amount of controversy thrown in) whenthe Seattle City Council voted 7–1 to approve a memorandum of understanding between the city of Seattle and the Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, for renovations of KeyArena, which are proposed to begin later this year and be fully completed in 2020.
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