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.
Our photographer, Brian Liesse, was on the scene.
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.
Submitted by @risingaction #BoredBatchCalls pic.twitter.com/3qXV84vcXN
— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) March 30, 2020
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.
SUBSCRIBE! ENJOY! REVIEW!
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
Tyler Johnson’s game-winning goal against the Boston Bruins Wednesday was big. But, to the Tampa Bay Lightning veteran it was a simple enough play.
“It bounced off the pad, right to me,” the former Spokane Chiefs star, who also added an assist, said after Tampa Bay’s 3-2 win in the NHL’s Round Robin play.
Johnson, 30, checks off two boxes of Northwest cred. Not only did he score 128 goals over four seasons for the Chiefs, but he was born and raised in Spokane.
The goal came with just 1:27 left on the clock after Yanni Gourde took a shot that rebounded hard off Boston goalie Tuukka Rask’s pad right to a net-crashing Johnson. The Veteran didn’t miss and notched his 25th NHL postseason marker.
Spot on!
Your @sonnysbbq goal of the game: Johnny's game-winner 👏 #TBLvsBOS pic.twitter.com/OEpmH9U6at
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) August 5, 2020
“I think Johnny’s been a great player for us a for a long time,” Tampa’s Alex Killorn said. “He’s played in an All-Star game, could have been the Conn Smythe winner in 2015 if we’d won, he’s a great playoff player. He comes up big in the big moment. That’s a huge moment. He breaks free and gets to the net, big goal at the end of the game. Huge for us going forward.”
Killorn is referring to the 2015 run the Lightning made to the Stanley Cup Final.
In 26 games that spring, Johnson found the back of the net 13 times while recording 23 points. Johnson’s Conn Smythe bid was stopped by the Chicago Blackhawks, who won the Cup in six games.
After being passed over in the NHL Draft, Johnson has been able to carve out an impressive professional career and has been a mainstay with the Lightning since getting the call up from the American Hockey League in 2013.
Johnson had big game experience early on in his junior career. He was a rookie with the Chiefs during their 2008 WHL Championship and Memorial Cup winning team and is still thriving in big hockey games.
Wednesday’s win gave the Lightning a 2-0 record in the round robin as they push for the top seed in the Eastern Conference. To do so, they’ll need a win over the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday.
“This is a brand new thing for us and we’re just trying to play the best hockey we can,” Johnson said. “I think that’s really all we’re focusing on, so that we can be playing our best hockey when our first-round starts.”
In the 40-plus year history of the Seattle Thunderbirds, no defenseman scored as many points as Shea Theodore.
Thursday, the Vegas Golden Knights blueliner reminded of his scoring prowess as he potted a pair of goals to lead Vegas to a 6-4 win over the defending Stanley Cup Champion St. Louis Blues in the NHL’s round-robin. The win moves the Golden Knights to 2-0 and like the Lightning in the East, Vegas has a chance to clinch the top seed in the Western Conference.
Theodore’s first goal cut into a 2-0 Blues lead in the second period. He then capped off the scoring with an insurance marker late in the third. A slick skater with great vision, both of the goals came on wrist shots from the point through traffic.
Shea Theodore get Vegas on the board in the 2nd!#VegasBorn pic.twitter.com/A1JDEfDHD8
— Hockey Daily 365 (@HockeyDaily365) August 7, 2020
“Sometimes that’s all it takes,” Theodore, 25, said. “When you’re the guy up top and it comes to you, you have to get it past one set of shin pads and hope it gets through. I got one through tonight.”
With the Thunderbirds from 2011 to 2015, Theodore’s Seattle career was one for the ages. He won gold for Canada at the World Junior Championships in 2015, won WHL Defenseman of the Year that same season, and was drafted in the first round of the 2013 NHL Draft by the Anaheim Ducks.
The Ducks, in their infinite wisdom, moved Theodore to Vegas during the 2017 expansion draft. Since then, he’s turned himself into one of the top, up and coming, NHL defensemen.
Down 3-1 in the third period it looked like the Columbus Blue Jackets would be on the brink, down 2-1 in their best-of-five against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
That would change as former Portland Winterhawk defenseman Seth Jones sparked a comeback for the ages.
Jones wired a shot through traffic, and goalie Freddie Andersen, to give the Blue Jackets life. They would eventually tie the game and then win it late in overtime as the Leafs are now the ones on the brink and staring into the abyss of endless critique from the Toronto media.
SETH JONES.
SNIPE CITY.
POPULATION: YOU.#CBJ pic.twitter.com/CftwfXkZID
— 1st Ohio Battery (@1stOhioBattery) August 7, 2020
It was the fifth NHL playoff goal for Jones, who was with Portland for the 2012-2013 WHL season. He notched 56 points and helped the Winterhawks win the WHL Championship during his one-year stint in the WHL. The Nashville Predators then took him fourth overall in the 2013 draft and he has been in the NHL ever since.
Jones and the Blue Jackets can wipe out the Maple Leafs Friday as the series wastes no time in getting back into action.
MAJOR GUEST ALERT!!
It’s a BIG-TIME episode this week, as the guys welcome Mr. Tod Leiweke, CEO of the Seattle Kraken.
You will hear from a side of Tod in this interview that you likely have not heard before, as he truly lets his passion and fandom for the sport of hockey shine through in this very fun conversation. Of course John, Andy, and Darren ask about the arduous process of naming the 32nd NHL franchise with Tod, but they also take a trip down memory lane that you won’t want to miss. This is an all-timer.
Also in this episode, plenty of discussion about some of the early outcomes and controversies from the Qualifying Rounds, some disagreements between John and Darren, and a very solid Re: Torts.
Other segments this week include Goalie Gear Corner, Bad Boys, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
SUBSCRIBE! ENJOY! REVIEW!
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
Carolina Hurricanes center Morgan Geekie has played four NHL games during his budding career but is making an impact.
Two of those games have come in the NHL’s Qualifying Round that began this weekend and Monday morning, Geekie recorded his first postseason point.
Centering the Hurricanes fourth line the former Tri-City American picked up an assist in the second period to help pad a Carolina lead as the Hurricanes took a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five series against the New York Rangers.
Geekie, 22, picked the puck up low and battled his way to the front of the net where he slid it to Jordan Martinkook for a score that made it 3-1, Carolina. The Hurricanes would go on to win 4-1.
Grit and Grind are more than just words to us pic.twitter.com/h1TFUKkkPf
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) August 3, 2020
“I think it starts from even before the pause,” Martinook said of Geekie’s NHL start. “You saw in the short time he was with us…I think he had five or six points. He’s poised, he holds onto pucks and he works…he’ll hold on to it and he makes plays. It was a great play by him and that was a big goal in the game.”
Martinook was being generous as Geekie scored three goals and added an assist in his brief two-game regular season stint. While not six points, or even five, picking up four in two games is impressive.
He had a stellar career with the WHL’s Tri-City Americans and was a third-round draft pick of the Hurricanes in 2017 – he was selected by Ron Francis, who was the general manager in Carolina at the time and of course is now running the Seattle Kraken.
Geekie was with Tri-City from 2014 through 2018 and scored 78 goals for the Americans – 65 of which came in his last two years in Kennewick. He was a member of the Tri-City club that ran to the Western Conference Finals in 2018 before losing to the Everett Silvertips.
He was also a big part of the AHL’s Charolette Checkers team that won the Calder Cup in 2019. Geekie scored eight goals while recording 18 points in 19 postseason games that spring.
Geekie and the Hurricanes will look for the sweep in Game 3, Tuesday evening.
Carter Hart has always been calm. The pressure cooker of the NHL playoffs hasn’t changed anything.
The former Everett Silvertip star became the youngest Philadelphia Flyers goalie to win a postseason game with his 34-save performance against the Boston Bruins Sunday afternoon. The win gave Hart and the Flyers a 1-0 record in the round robin portion of the postseason.
Hart, 21, was at his best early and then late when the Bruins pulled their goalie for the extra skater. That generated a number of shots for Boston, but Hart was there to kick away them all.
“He doesn’t look 21 to me, he’s pretty poised,” Flyers forward Nate Thompson said afterwards. “Even off the ice he carries himself well beyond his years. He’s a true pro and he reminds me a little bit of a goalie I used to play with in Montreal…he’s our backbone back there.”
Hart played for the Silvertips from 2014 through 2018 and led Everett to the WHL Championship Series in his final season. Along the way he twice won CHL Goalie of the Year and was named WHL Player of the Year in 2018. He was a second-round selection of the Flyers in the 2016 NHL Draft and is no stranger to big games as he twice played for Team Canada at the World Junior Championships, winning gold in 2018.
“Once you get out there and start playing, the game really slows down,” he said Sunday about his first NHL postseason start. “Obviously it’s a little different playoffs where we don’t have fans…but when the game’s going, and the puck drops, its all the same. You just have to prepare and play your game.”
Thompson , who played with the Seattle Thunderbirds from 2001 to 2005, scored a big goal in the second period to stake the Flyers to a 2-0 lead. While his goaltender was just seeing his first postseason action, Sunday was Thompson’s 63rd such game.
🚨 Nate Thompson
2-0 #Flyers pic.twitter.com/d0SuiFsped— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@TheReplayGuy) August 2, 2020
He started the season with the Montreal Canadiens before being sent to Philadelphia at this year’s trade deadline – which feels like a lifetime ago.
“It’s always nice to get a big goal,” Thompson said. “Just trying to get it on net and hopefully I can chip in with some big goals as we get going here in the playoffs.”
The Flyers are off until Thursday when they’ll continue the round robin in a match up with the Washington Capitals.
Carey Price, who played with the Tri-City Americans from 2003 to 2007, was masterful Saturday night to lead the Montreal Canadiens to an 3-2 overtime upset of the Pittsburgh Penguins. He set the tone in the first ten minutes, making unbelievable saves, and would end the night with 39 stops.
Monday, he did all he could to put Montreal in a command position against Pittsburgh, only allowing two goals while turning away 35 Penguins bids. Price didn’t get help from the guys in front of him as Montreal couldn’t score until late in the third period and fell 3-1 to even up the series at a game each.
The swing Game 3 will be Wednesday night as Price will try to put the Penguins’ backs against the wall.
Former Spokane Chiefs defenseman Jared Spurgeon scored a power-play goal and an empty-net tally to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 3-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks, Sunday. With the win, the Wild take a 1-0 lead over Vancouver in the best-of-five series.
Radko Gudas, who played his junior hockey with the Everett Silvertips, picked up an assist during the Washington Capitals 4-3 shootout loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Capitals first round robin game.
Oilers defenseman, and former Seattle Thunderbird, Ethan Bear had an assist during Edmonton’s 6-3 win over Chicago in Game 2 of their qualifying round. The helper was his first NHL postseason point.
