THE KRAKEN IS RISEN!

Seattle announced the name/logo/color scheme of their new NHL franchise today, and I am such a happy puppy about the whole thing. I'm so delighted that I don't even mind (much) that the Coyotes are getting shunted into the Central Division to make room for Seattle team. (Hopefully it'll wind up working out in my favor, since the Coyotes in Central should mean they'll be playing more regularly against the Stars, which means I'll get to go see my boys in person way more often.) Anyway back to the matter at hand! Despite its general popularity, I really wasn't convinced the Powers That Be ^TM would go for the Kraken, because it's kind of a weird one, but they did! And boy howdy did their design team do it up right, too. I mean, look at this:





What tremendously sleek and subtle design work. Really well done. They'll also be playing in an arena that's pushing to be the first net zero carbon emissions arena in the world (or at least the US) and aims to "revolutionize sustainable stadium design." I'm not sure what the actual environmental impact will be in terms of architecture and practices, but it's cool that they're trying, even so. Though, Amazon is involved, so I'm cautiously pessimistic about the whole thing.

The NHL's revised pandemic playoffs start on August 1. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Actually, that's not entirely true. I think it's probably a bad idea and I'm afraid it's going to backfire in a big way that nobody right now expects or anticipates, but maybe I'm just borrowing trouble. I'm going to watch anyway. And the part of me that rubbernecks at car wrecks sort of wants to buy one of the mildly tasteless "Drop the Puck 2020" shirts the NHL is peddling to celebrate the return of the season, in case it does backfire.

Anyway, apologies to everyone once August circles back around and I start screaming about sports again. Will tag appropriately so you can avoid it if that's not to your taste.

The Fifth Estate: The Legacy of Brendan Burke

So, y'all may or may not be aware of the fact that professional sports in general suffer some fairly homophobic cultural mores. The NHL in particular hasn't seen any out LGBTQ+ players, current or retired, though they're making efforts to change the culture to allow that to happen. A lot of those efforts are thanks to a young man named Brendan Burke, who died in a car accident before he could see any of his efforts come to fruition. CBC's The Fifth Estate put out a really great, if slightly painful, documentary about Brendan and queer players in the NHL that's very good, if you've got 45 minutes to spare. Tumblr user camwarden was kind enough to upload a non geoblocked version to YouTube, and you can watch it here:

Watch on YouTube

It's a really great, painful look at the treatment of homosexuality in pro sports in general and the NHL in specific, and makes some really good points about a lot of aspects of that issue, including addressing (if briefly) the differences between pressures that male and female pro athletes face to stay in the closet.