Seattle Kraken 'troll' fans with new mascot, 'Buoy'
Mascots are a big part of the NHL. In fact, the New York Rangers are the only team currently without one.
The most recent addition to the NHL, the Seattle Kraken, now has a mascot to call their own.
Ahead of Saturday's preseason tilt against the Vancouver Canucks, the Kraken unveiled "Buoy," a sea troll inspired by the Fremont Troll sculpture, located under the George Washington Memorial Bridge in Seattle.
"Buoy's hair is a nod to hockey flow and the waves of Puget Sound," read a description of Buoy from Emerald City Hockey. "You'll notice there is a removable tooth just like a hockey player, an anchor earring for our secondary mark, and then a mysterious tentacle indicating an encounter with the Kraken."
Several teams have gone outside the box when choosing a mascot. However, after the reveal of Buoy, the question has to be asked. Why didn't the Kraken go with ... a kraken?
"Many people would have said, 'Well, it's obvious it would just be a kraken,'" Kraken chief marketing officer Katie Townsend told NHL.com's Nicholas J. Cotsonika. "We believe the Kraken lives in the theater of the mind. One of the brand values is its mystery. We don't want to be a cartoon brand and to have a cartoon kraken represent us."
So far, the reactions to Buoy from the Kraken faithful have been mixed, to say the least.
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