SEATTLE — Against an impossibly blue sky, a crane swung a steel beam around before lowering it down to two workers perched up high on the frame of the structure. The workers secured the beam into place as hundreds of their fellow BN Builders crew members on the ground looked on. Once secured, the final beam in the Seattle Kraken’s Northgate practice facility was installed.
Monday’s activities were what are known as a ‘topping off’ ceremony and is a celebration of a major milestone in the construction of the Northgate Ice Centre.
Two workers celebrate the installation of the final beam at the Northgate Ice Centre. (Brian Liesse photo)
The three-sheet practice facility, which will also serve the community by allowing public access to the ice, has taken shape. All three rinks are visible, although made of dirt rather than ice at the moment, and missing boards, benches, and glass.
To reach this point in the project, which broke ground in February, crews had to excavate 25,000 cubic yards of dirt and install just short of 3 million pounds of structural steel.
Installation of the final beam on Monday was the result of 2,700 man hours and the crew celebrated with raucous cheers as the beam was set in place. All of the workers got a chance to sign the beam before it was hoisted in the air, forever cementing their names into the Northgate project.
Inside, in one of the rinks, prior to the beam being secured, BNB workers, along with team staff and visitors, gathered in front of giant flag with the now widely popular Kraken ‘S’ on it.
“We’re really here today to honor you,” Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke said to the group. “We believe in unions and we believe in what you’ve done here. I just want to give thanks to each and every person here and I hope you never forget what you’ve done here. In these times, to come to work and put these masks on, to not step away, it’s truly the American spirit.
“We know that under this roof that you’ve built, amazing things are going to happen…you’ve played a really important role. Never, ever forget, and forever take credit…I can’t wait to come back and invite all these men and women back. I’m buying the beer and we’re going to celebrate.”
The Northgate Ice Centre is an 180,000 square foot project, located on the east side of the mall where the Macy’s Department Store had been, and will serve as a practice space for the NHL club as well as house its staff. Along with the three rinks, the facility will feature a restaurant and a Virginia Mason Clinic.
One of the three rinks at the Northgate Ice Centre practice facility. (Brian Liesse photo)
Phase one of the project is targeted to be finished in June of 2021 which includes the team office area and main rink. The remainder of the project is set to be finished in September of 2021.
“This is thrilling,” Kraken executive counsel Lance Lopes said. “It’s been fantastic to see this thing take its final structure. We’ve known how big and impressive it was going to be for some time. But, until you actually see it in place, it really hits you. We’re so excited about what we’re about to bring to Seattle.”
Work on the project was briefly stopped in March as the State limited what construction projects could be worked on during the COVID pandemic.
Eventually given the green light, the work continued with workers following strict social distancing and masking procedures. With the final beam in place, work can now begin on completing the structure, putting in walls, windows, and at some point, next summer, ice.
“We have a lot of work to do still but we’ve been able to continue to stay on pace,” Lopes said. “We’re really happy with the way our construction teams have stepped up and stayed safe. We’ve haven’t had any positive tests out here. The team has really been paying attention and we have a safe site and an on-time site.”
Check out pictures of the structure in a gallery from photographer Brian Liesse:
Every playoff I enjoy digging into the rosters of the playoff teams to see how they compare across relatively basic demographic information such as Nationality & Age. This year I have added ‘acquired type”, thanks to CapFriendly. Quick bit of disclosure, data is grabbed from CapFriendly and NHL.com.
For a player to be counted in these numbers, they must have played a second of ice time of the playoffs. (i.e. Thatcher Demko has been the back up goalie for Vancouver in all their games but has yet to play a second on the ice and will not be counted.)
Age
Nationality
For a comparison, ~48% of the league is Canadian.
Here is a distribution by team
How acquired
This is a fun view on how these teams were built.
As you can see, the Vegas Golden Knights do not have one of their draft picks playing on their team….but their 2nd pick in their history is playing for Montreal.
The Seattle Kraken are a season away from playing but the NHL playoffs feature players who cut their teeth in the Northwest. There are guys who played junior hockey locally – we’re just talking Washington and Oregon here, not British Columbia which is technically Southwest Canada – or are natives of the area.
As the playoffs progress, we’ll check in with guys who stood out on the ice.
By Andy Eide
New York Islanders center Mathew Barzal is no shrinking violet when the game is on the line. He wants the puck. He wants to make the play.
It was that competitive spirit that helped Barzal as he led the Seattle Thunderbirds to the 2017 WHL Championship – where he was named playoff MVP. Sunday, in overtime against the Washington Capitals in Game 3 of the Islanders best-of-seven first round series, Barzal got the puck on his stick.
Breaking in behind the Capitals defense, Barzal collected a pin-point pass from Jordan Eberle and skated in alone on Washington goalie Braden Holtby. Barzal deked and swept the puck past Holtby’s pad to give the Islanders a 2-1 win and put them up 3-0 in the series.
“I run that play a little bit in practice, or even in games, just try to sneak behind the D a little bit,” Barzal said in Toronto, Sunday. “Just time it perfectly on the blue line and great play by Ebs.”
It was the first playoff overtime goal by Barzal, who was playing in his 15th postseason game of his three-year career. The goal was the second of the playoffs for Barzal, the first in the series with the Capitals, to go along with a pair of assists.
In what was a tight checking game, Barzal had some looks and created offense in regulation but couldn’t find the back of the net until the extra frame.
“I feel like our line’s been pretty solid five on five, we’ve played well, and I think we’ve scored a few goals,” Barzal said. “Tonight was a great game I thought by our team. In general, I thought our line played well in the O-Zone and created chances…just really happy to get the winner there.”
To slow down Barzal, the Capitals threw defenseman Brenden Dillon out on the ice against him as much as possible.
Dillon, who played for the Seattle Thunderbirds from 2007-2011, held Barzal in check for most of the night – playing over nine minutes against him. Barzal had the last laugh however as Dillon was on the ice as Barzal got behind everyone in overtime.
“We get to practice with him and against him,” New York’s Anders Lee said about Barzal. “We see how dynamic he really is day in and day out. He proved it out there on the ice again tonight.”
Barzal, 23, is in his second Stanley Cup Playoffs. He’s still learning but Sunday checked off a big accomplishment by winning a game in overtime.
“He wants to be that difference maker and today he got an opportunity and he capitalized on it,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. ‘I just like the growth of Mathew and he’s growing all the time as a player and these experiences are going to help him grow and play the right way, know how to play in the playoffs…he’s been accepting of the challenges I’ve given him.”
Hart blanks the Habs
Game 3 between the Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal Canadiens turned into one of ‘what you can do I can do better’.
Former Everett Silvertips goalie Carter Hart became the youngest Flyer to record a shutout as he blanked Montreal 1-0 after kicking away all 23 Montreal shots. It was an impressive performance that came a game after Hart was pulled in the second period during Friday’s Game 2 while allowing four goals as former Tri-City American Carey Price shut out the Flyers 5-0.
Hart showed no residual effects from Friday’s loss.
“It’s a good thing that he’s a little bit oblivious to some things as a goalie in Philadelphia,” Flyers Jakub Voracek said Sunday. “He’s really strong mentally. He’s a young kid who works really hard and he’s pretty impressive. The way he bounced back, even last year, if he had a bad game he’d bounce back strong.”
After being pulled on Friday, Hart was visibly upset and cameras caught him slamming the door at the bench shut. There was anger and frustration.
Hart said he and his teammates hit the pool Saturday for some fun to get their minds off the game for a few hours. That helped reset him and the Flyers as a whole.
Sunday, it was back to business for the 22-year-old.
“I’ve just got to do my job,” Hart said. “That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. That criteria is stopping pucks, so when it’s time to play the game, that’s all I have to worry about. We’ve got a great crew in front of us that makes my job easier.”
Philadelphia took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series that has been a goaltending clinic. Goals have been tough to come by. Hart got the shutout while his boyhood idol, Price, has only surrendered three goals in the series.
Game 4 will be played Tuesday.
Other Northwest notables
Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore scored the lone goal for the Golden Knights as they fell to Chicago 3-1 in Edmonton Sunday. Vegas leads the series 3-1 and will look to advance to the second round with a win on Tuesday. Theodore has been outstanding in the postseason and Sunday’s score was his fourth of the playoffs to go with six points in six games.
Vegas Golden Knights Defenceman Shea Theodore is off to a hot start in the playoffs. (Photo by Jeff Speer/Icon Sportswire)
In Sunday’s most entertaining game, the Dallas Stars scored late against Calgary to force overtime. The Stars would go on to win 5-4 and even their series at 2-2. Flames’ forward Derek Ryan picked up an assist on a goal in the third period that looked like it would be game winner. Ryan not only played for the Spokane Chiefs from 2003-2007 but he is a Spokane native.
The Seattle Kraken hooked up with WaFd Bank Thursday for a public drive-through event. WaFd and the team recently entered into a sponsorship deal, making WaFd the official bank of the Seattle Kraken. To celebrate, the Kraken took over the Ballard WaFd drive through to hand out merch, raffle away future tickets, and give away autographed Ron Francis sticks.
It happened fast. Eleven seconds, to be exact. It was eleven seconds into overtime last Friday night when Vancouver Canucks defenseman Chris Tanev’s shot from the point found its way through traffic and into the Minnesota Wild net.
The goal gave Vancouver its first postseason series win since 2011 and delighted a hockey crazed Canucks fan base. For those listening in on Sportsnet 650, they heard the goal through Brendan Batchelor’s call, which was full of energy.
It was a big moment for Batchelor, who was calling his first postseason series since joining the Canucks radio broadcast team in 2017. But it was also unique because instead of being perched over the ice at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Batchelor and his broadcast partner Corey Hirsch were 700 miles away, calling the game from a small studio in Vancouver.
He was unable to feed off the crowd in the arena that he normally might so Batchelor had to muster it on his own. Something that was easy to do.
“We have thousands and thousands of people that are vested, listening to the game,” Batchelor says. “When all of those people hear me call a big goal, they’re exploding off their couch, just as they would if they were in the 10th row of the lower bowl in Rogers Arena. While we can’t feel that energy like we would, that energy is still out there and we still have to harness that. It’s our job to convey the excitement of an overtime victory, for the first time in nine years, to a fan base that is still celebrating just as hard.”
Calling games in the NHL means that broadcasters sit in booths that offer the best vantage points.
They’re over the ice, able to see every nuance of the game. What is happening on the bench, did a player leave with an injury, what’s going on behind the play. All events that Batchelor normally can view and describe to his listeners.
Because of COVID-19 and the NHL’s Return to Play Plan, radio broadcasters have been kept out of the bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto. They’ve been relegated to studios and television monitors.
Some of the nuances are lost.
The studio set up that Brendan Batchelor and Corey Hirsch call Canucks playoff games from.
In their studio, which is a television studio used by Sportsnet, Batchelor and Hirsch rely on a big monitor that provides the same network feed that fans watching at home get. The NHL has given them one additional monitor, however. It’s a high angle shot from a static camera, an ‘all 12’ camera. The ‘all 12’ allows Batchelor to see the shot clock and what is happening behind the play or on the benches but makes it hard to see numbers on jerseys.
You can’t call a game from that view, not well anyway, so Batchelor and Hirsch rely on the game feed, which has some drawbacks.
“All of a sudden a guy comes darting up the ice, he may have come off the bench, and gets a quick shot away,” Batchelor says about perhaps the biggest adjustment. “The camera pans to the net because he took the shot. You have no idea what player that was. So, we’ve had to get a little creative with things like that. I’ll be honest in saying that I can’t be as specific as I normally would be. I’ll have to say, ‘the Canucks get a shot on goal’ or something like that.”
Like many NHL broadcasters, Batchelor, 31, worked his way up the hockey ladder.
He started by calling games in the British Columbia Hockey League and then spent four seasons as the voice of the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants. That led to the Canucks and the NHL where he is the youngest radio voice in the league.
Those lower levels of hockey prepared him to make adjustments calling games. While he never had to call from a television, there were some challenges with the smaller rinks and less than ideal broadcast locations.
“There’s an arena in Merritt, B.C., in the BCHL, where’s there’s a hanging heater that goes the length of the ice right down the middle, right in your view off the booth,” he says. “When I did games there, I had to jump on a chair to see one side of the ice and jump down to see the other.”
He’s called games off television before as well, just not as a professional.
Growing up, Batchelor would mute the sound while watching NHL games and do his own play-by-play. He recalls his father taking him to see the Canucks play the Kings at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum when he was five. He knew all the players and provided an on-going commentary.
“I’ve been talking through hockey games my whole life,” he says.
Hockey fans had to endure a five-month stretch without the sport they love this year and Batchelor is no different. To kill time, and offer entertainment with some levity, Batchelor solicited home videos from his Twitter followers this summer and added some play-by-play.
With hockey back now, many of the NHL television broadcasts during the playoffs this summer are being done remotely. But, the radio call has a unique challenge that TV broadcasters don’t have. The picture can do a good portion of the talking when the game is being viewed. Radio listeners need more detail.
Batchelor takes his role in that seriously, even more so with the current state of the world and the thirst fans have for sports.
“The one thing I’ve really tried to focus on in this COVID era where we’re calling games off the monitor is just being ultra-focused and ultra-prepared so I’m not giving myself any excuses,” he says. “I need to paint an entire picture for (listeners). I need to let them know what color jersey each team is wearing before the game. I need to let them know which way each team is skating.
“One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given in my play-by-play career, was on radio you have to convey where the puck is on the ice… you can describe a goal and be accurate but you have to paint a picture. If I say ‘J.T. Miller passes to Elias Pettersson and Elias Pettersson scores’, that’s accurate but if I say ‘J.T. Miller has it in the left circle ,passes to Pettersson for a one timer that he puts over the glove of the goaltender’, that’s something you can picture in your mind.”
The Canucks kick off their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series with the defending Champion St. Louis Blues Wednesday night in Edmonton.
Thousands of Canucks fans will be tuning in to hear how the play unfolds. They’ll rely on Batchelor and Hirsch to paint that picture for them. They’ll hang on every word and perhaps will close their eyes to envision the game through Batchelor’s call.
“We’re not trying to hide anything,” he says. “When we come on the air we make it clear we’re broadcasting from a studio in Vancouver… Our aim is to bring the same quality product that we bring all the time. These are the biggest games we’ve ever done. I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to give to Canucks fans by providing some really good coverage.”
To listen in on Batchelor’s call of the Canucks playoff run, head to Sportsnet 650 here, or through the NHL app.
When you least expect it, an awesome guest slides into this week’s episode, as Everett Fitzhugh – recently named the Seattle Kraken’s first broadcaster – joins the guys for a very fun conversation that you won’t want to miss. In case you missed Everett’s story this past week, he has quickly risen through the ranks from the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones, and now will fulfill his dream of working for an NHL franchise. He has been making national headlines as the only black play-by-play announcer in professional hockey, and his passion and enthusiasm will definitely brighten your day. Give him a listen!
Also on the show this week, Darren argues that Phase 2 of the Draft Lottery was rigged (it wasn’t), and John and Andy give some of their highlights from the Qualifying Round inside the NHL’s bubble. Together, the guys also look ahead to the first round of the actual Playoffs, which are now under way.
Segments this week include Re: Torts, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
