Kraken Dog Days Of Winter
During their inaugural season, the Kraken introduced a mixed-breed husky rescue dog mascot named Davy Jones. The team won its first game after he was introduced, snapping a nine-game losing streak.
Davy merch, like calendars and socks, were available at team stores. Even today, a hoodie-clad Davy mascot doll can be yours on Ebay for $78 plus tax.
The 4-month-old puppy spent time at the team offices in Northgate, which was fine. He didn’t mind chasing pucks on the ice, or visiting with players in the dressing room. But appearances at home games didn’t go well. The goal horns and yelling and screaming of 17,000 fans at Climate Pledge Arena caused Davy a great deal of anxiety. He was further overwhelmed by the well-meaning attention of Kraken fans.
Originally adopted by a Kraken executive, Davy at last check was living with a family of season ticket-holders in Tacoma.
Kraken BookTok Dalliance
For brevity’s sake, I’ll over-simplify. TikTok videos have a subsection named BookTok. BookTok has a hugely popular subsection of explicit hockey romance stories.
Wanting to latch onto that popularity, Kraken social media started using the hashtag #booktok. In 2023, they partnered with a BookTok-er who boasted 1.2 million followers. Kierra Lewis was invited to a home playoff game, given an ice-level seat, and a Kraken jersey with “Booktok” on the nameplate.
However, much of the hockey romance TikTok derives its popularity from is R-to-XXX content. What’s worse, real players are sometimes substituted (called “face-claiming”) for the fictional characters in the stories.
Lewis’ subsequent TikToks included images of former Seattle center Alexander Wennberg. Lewis used language in those videos so lewd a porn actress would blush. Understandably, both Wennberg and his wife Felicia took to social media to object.
Ms. Wennberg wrote, “What doesn’t sit with me is when your desires come with sexual harassment, inappropriate comments, and the fact that with the internet we can normalize behaviour that would never be ok if we flipped the genders around to a guy doing this to a female athlete.”
The Kraken-BookTok synergy was quickly un-synergized, as the social media team deleted all of its BookTok-style player videos (which, it should be noted, were G-rated compared to much of the niche’s content.)
A key member of Seattle’s 100-point season in 2022-23, Wennberg was traded to the Rangers and now plays for the San Jose Sharks.
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