The boys are in playoff mode! As Kraken versus Avalanche Game 3 approaches, with the series tied 1-1, John and Darren are running on adrenaline. They recap Games 1 and 2 and share their own personal excitement for Game 3, which will be the first home playoff game in Kraken history.
After plenty of Kraken talk, the focus shifts to a glance around the NHL, where the guys discuss their favorite series so far. They then move Down on the Farm, where Tye Kartye has won the AHL Rookie of the Year award, and the Firebirds are in the playoffs. They also cover the Thunderbirds’ exciting 8-0 run through the WHL playoffs so far.
The lights went down in Climate Pledge Arena, and the first images of the pre-game show for the April 8 Kraken game against the Chicago Blackhawks appeared on the immense screens suspended over the ice. As fog was being pumped in from the rafters, the playing surface, with the help of carefully placed projectors, transformed into ominous ocean waves.
When the bone-rattling sound effects kicked in, Kraken Vice President of Game Experience and Production, Lamont Buford—from his perch atop section 117—noticed a split-second delay in the timing of the audio starting. “We were almost late on that one,” he said, before feverishly scribbling down a note on his 30-page show script.
The night before that Saturday game, Buford left team headquarters at Kraken Community Iceplex in the evening to have dinner with his wife. He then returned to the office and worked from 8 pm to 1 am, and was at Climate Pledge from from 10 am until 10:45 pm on gameday. And Buford’s team works just as hard as he does.
“Those who are crazy enough to be a part of the game presentation world, they get it, they have a passion for it, and they love it,” he said.
As fans, we tend to assume everything happening at a pro sporting event is done magically. We don’t think about the teams of people working tirelessly behind the scenes to put on a memorable spectacle, dictating what we see, hear, feel, and even smell during the course of the game.
So how does it all happen? Through diligent planning, careful orchestration of a highly skilled and driven team, and intense attention to detail.
Sound Of Hockey went behind the scenes with Buford and several members of the Kraken game experience team to get a feel for how all the pieces sync together.
Innumerable moving parts
Producing a sporting event is a unique challenge. “It’s a theater play, it’s a broadcast, and it’s a live event, all wrapped up in one,” said Buford. Producing a Kraken game at Climate Pledge Arena, one of the most technologically advanced arenas in the world, is even more demanding than doing so in older buildings.
Think about that pre-game show you’ve seen before Kraken games this season. Of course, there’s the cinematic hype video that plays on the two identical scoreboards, but that’s only part of the sensory experience for the audience. There’s also music, sound effects, lighting effects, on-ice projections, graphical displays on the LED ribbons that line the facades of the upper levels, and live public address announcements.
The producer and associate producer oversee the pre-game show from atop section 117. (Photo/Darren Brown)
Those elements have all become fairly standard in today’s NHL. But the Kraken pre-game show takes the presentation a couple steps farther with the arena’s added bells and whistles. A massive neon-embossed tentacle—which team staff have nicknamed “Stella” after Stella’s Deli, a commonly visited lunch spot for the organization in its infancy—descends from the rafters, while the curtains at the north end of the arena serve as a colossal movie screen for the mythical seafaring beast stirring from its slumber.
That is a lot of different components to monitor and cue for perfect timing, and this is just the pre-game show. There’s still a three-hour hockey game to produce, with in-game contests, intermission shows, a house band, a live organist, an ice crew, two DJ’s, and a mascot.
The show takes Buford, his team of 13 full-time employees, and a bevy of part-timers and contractors to execute.
A well-oiled machine
How it all gets managed starts with the structure of the department that Buford helped put in place during Seattle’s inaugural season. For each game, there’s a producer—either himself or Senior Manager of Entertainment Experience, Caitlin Salemi—“calling” the game. Then there’s an “associate” producer that serves as the right hand for the game caller and helps relay information between the off-ice officials and public address announcer, Chet Buchanan.
Kraken public address announcer Chet Buchanan announces Eeli Tolvanen’s goal against the Blackhawks. (Photo/Darren Brown)
The “associate” role is filled on any given night by either Salemi or Buford, whichever is not producing the game, or by Nicole “Shabz” Shabaz, who has expressed interest in one day becoming a producer. On games when Salemi is the producer and Shabaz is the associate producer, Buford is free to roam the building and check in on his staff to uncover any unforeseen challenges.
The producer, associate producer, and Buchanan all work from a platform above section 117, so they can see and hear all elements of the game presentation in real time and feel the atmosphere the same way the crowd feels it.
During a game, there is a lot for the producer to juggle, from managing the script to supervising communications between the various teams. Buford praised Salemi for the polished product she has consistently delivered under the pressure of that high-stakes role.
“One of the best things that we were able to do was hire Caitlin,” Buford said. “[She spent] 12 years in the minor leagues [with the Rochester Americans], but actually as the director calling games, calling shows, so she knows what she’s doing… She has been, honestly, just a rock for us.”
Inside the control room at Climate Pledge Arena. (Photo/Darren Brown)
The crew at the top of section 117 is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also a team of up to five “stage managers,” who are in the trenches and executing more of the hands-on work. They’re the ones picking people out of the crowd for promotional games and telling participants and in-arena hosts when to walk, when to smile, and when to wave for the cameras.
Meanwhile, in the bowels of the building, there’s a full state-of-the-art control room that is outfitted and staffed like a television news station. It’s in that room that the video seen on the big screens comes to life. So, everything you see on the twin scoreboards—the live game footage, instant replays, and graphics—is cued from that room.
“This room here is beefed up way more than just about any arena in the country with the coverage that we have,” Buford proudly proclaimed, as he surveyed the control room.
High above the playing surface in the press bridge, there are also four rooms dedicated to the game presentation staff; one for the LED ribbon and on-ice projection operators, one for sound control, one for the lighting in the building, and one for DJ Trunks and DJ Cide, the two men responsible for elevating the atmosphere musically throughout the night.
Buford oversees it all but finds peace in knowing he has the right people in place to handle all of their highly specialized tasks.
Building from scratch
Drawing on his past experience with the Arizona Coyotes, St. Louis Blues, and Hershey Bears, Buford knew building the in-game show from scratch would require additional staffing and would present rare hurdles.
“It’s also COVID, so you don’t have that time to kind of come in and think about ‘Ok, this is the office setup, this is what I need to make sure I have,’” recalled Buford. “You’re doing everything off a piece of paper, a drawing. And you’re just trying to build the team. Most of the team is coming in from out of town, so it was one of those things that was very different in that regard.”
With the added complexity of the pandemic, the Kraken intentionally hired backups for as many roles as possible to make sure they always had coverage in areas that couldn’t be easily replaced on a given gameday.
“When I got [to Arizona], one of the things I was tasked with was revamping everything,” said Buford. “And the good thing was you already had established people in key areas, so change wasn’t very hard. Everybody was able to adjust and adapt easily. When you’re in another place that’s established, you know where the staplers are, you know where the Sharpies are. Here, we didn’t know where anything was. We had to bring all that in.”
With the framework in place for the team’s second season, and with the restrictions of COVID mostly lifted, things got a bit easier for Buford’s team to enhance the experience into something truly special for the fanbase.
One of the best shows in the league
A lot of the additional staffing remained in place during the 2022-23 season, and that has helped the Kraken’s in-game show become one of the best in the NHL. Buford, who says he is his team’s harshest critic, ranks Seattle’s show in the top three with Tampa Bay and Vegas.
When he wasn’t monitoring the show from the stands, Buford displayed an almost mayoral quality strolling around the CPA concourses that evening, fist bumping dozens of passersby; “I know just a few people here,” he deadpanned. During a Kraken game is when Buford actually gets to enjoy the fruits of his and his team’s labor, but it’s only a fraction of the work done each day by his department.
“Everybody knows about Vegas,” Buford said. “It’s always kind of that thing where everybody is like, ‘You gotta do better than Vegas.’ Vegas is so unique, you can’t take that show anywhere else.”
Knowing the local Seattle market, the Kraken intentionally went in a different direction from what the Golden Knights created, instead choosing to build their own unique identity. That approach has worked wonders, and what fans encounter inside Climate Pledge Arena is unlike anything else in sports.
Fans seem to have picked up the baton and run with it. The crowd itself is a key part of the experience, bringing a festive ambience every night, and Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke knows that’s an essential piece of the puzzle.
“We think there’s an upside, but the best thing we have in that building isn’t the bricks and mortar and lights or sound effects,” Leiweke said on a recent Zoom call. “It’s really our fans. And they have been awesome from day one, and they are loud. I think our players feel it, and I just can’t wait [for the playoffs].”
A new look for the playoffs?
For as good as the game experience is already, Buford and his team are just getting started. With the Kraken in the playoffs for the first time, they have big things planned, including a new pre-game show and a plaza party outside the arena.
“We’re pretty satisfied that we’ve got a great game experience going on now,” said Leiweke. “But I’m also really happy that our team doesn’t rest on any laurels here. We want to push it. We’re going to have a new open for the playoffs and we’re just going to keep pushing.”
Some of the additional promotional material that has been added to the outside of Climate Pledge Arena for the playoffs. (Photo/Darren Brown)
If you’re wondering whether the Kraken will host any gatherings on the north end of the building, where fans can see in through the windows, that is unlikely. The area on that side isn’t as large as it is on the west and south sides of the arena, it’s a bit disjointed with different levels, and it doesn’t get nearly as much foot traffic.
Plus, at this time of year, with the sun still out at the start of the game, the team feels the need to close the curtains anyway to avoid glare on the playing surface. Buford said they tried to keep the curtains open recently, and they immediately started getting complaints relayed to them from players. “Hockey players are very particular. If they get that extra beam of light, they’re like, ‘I can’t see a thing.’”
So, if you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of playoff hockey from outside Climate Pledge Arena, you may have to settle for watching it on a big screen with several hundred of your closest friends.
For fans who are lucky enough to be inside the building, the game presentation team should have a nice treat for you. They will be ready to show off their latest spectacle, after putting in hundreds of man-hours to build an experience that matches the intensity of the on-ice product of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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Editor’s Note: We would like to extend a sincere thank you to Lamont Buford and his team, as well as Kraken PR, for allowing Sound Of Hockey to shadow the game presentation department during the game on April 8.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Welcome to Kraken Takeaways, a new video series hosted by our own John Barr and Darren Brown. Our plan for this series is to post new videos after each Kraken playoff game (assuming our schedules allow it), breaking down the previous contest with a rundown of topics.
We won’t post every video here on soundofhockey.com, so to ensure you see all of them, please subscribe on YouTube. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section on YouTube, or on this post.
Here’s our first installment, “Kraken Takeaways – Kraken versus Avalanche Game 1.”
This is the first story we’ve published on soundofhockey.com since the passing of our dear friend, Andy Eide, on Friday. There will be Kraken talk in this article—that’s what Andy would have wanted to see if he had clicked on it—but it feels important that we first touch on what Andy meant to us and to the Pacific Northwest hockey community.
The outpouring of love and support you’ve all shown for our pal has been heartwarming and unforgettable, and it is a testament to just how many lives Andy touched throughout his journey. He embodied hockey in the region and dedicated his life to a sport he loved more than anything. He helped it grow along the way simply by letting his passion and kindness shine through in his work and his relationships.
John Barr, Andy, and I have been doing the Sound Of Hockey Podcast together since 2018. In our latest episode, John and I did our best to verbalize how big of a loss this is, both for us as his friends and for the community, so we invite you to give that a listen. But I also wanted to share a memory that we didn’t mention on the episode.
At the 2019 NHL Entry Draft in Vancouver, I got to witness firsthand how much covering hockey meant to Andy. While John and I were there on “NHLtoSeattle” business, just hoping to get closer to the league in some way, Andy was there with a specific mission; to get the inside scoop on the Seattle Thunderbirds players that got selected by NHL teams.
From the AirBNB the three of us were sharing, Andy chatted on the phone with Henrik Rybinski, Matthew Wedman, and Roddy Ross, asking them about their big day for the story he was writing. He would ask a question, then feverishly scribble down their responses in his notebook. All the while, Andy was beaming with pride talking to the players, and we could hear in his voice that he had developed a real connection with these young men over the prior couple of seasons. He was overjoyed to see them achieve their dreams, and when you read the story he wrote that day, his deep understanding of their skillsets as players shines through.
That was the approach Andy always took to his writing, his podcasting, and his TV and radio broadcasting. He cared deeply about his craft and the players he was covering—no matter the level or league—and even when nobody else in the market was consistently talking about hockey, he found a way to do that.
Andy was a kind, gentle soul who always greeted you with a smile and a story about a Thunderbirds player of yore or something funny he overheard in a press scrum at Climate Pledge Arena.
We’re so thankful for the time we got to spend with Andy and the knowledge he shared with us. We will miss our friend.
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Kraktice
Andy loved calling Kraken practice “Kraktice,” so we too will be calling it that moving forward, as a subtle tribute to our buddy.
The atmosphere at Sunday’s Kraken practice—Kraktice, if you will—at Kraken Community Iceplex was quite different from that of Saturday’s on-ice session. That first skate of the weekend was jam packed with fans looking to catch a glimpse of their favorite players before the team jets off to Denver on Monday to start its first playoff adventure. On Sunday, the doors were closed to the public, and only a select few members of the local media were in attendance.
It made for a quieter, more focused approach to the practice, in which coach Dave Hakstol put his players through drills that seemed to center on activating defensemen off the rush and creating quick transitions.
“You can only do so much,” Hakstol said. “The biggest thing is to make sure we have pace. And then we’ve tried to pick a couple of different elements each day just to touch on.”
The team also walked through power play and penalty kill situations, but did so without Daniel Sprong, who missed both of the weekend’s practices. Hakstol said Sprong was day to day after Saturday’s skate.
Next up, the Kraken will have a morning skate at Ball Arena in Denver on Tuesday before taking on the Colorado Avalanche for Game 1 that evening.
“I think we’ve had a good couple days of practice here,” Jamie Oleksiak said. “I think everyone’s excited to get going and I think you feel energy around here.”
Drawing off past experience
While the Kraken have not made the playoffs before this season, it’s no secret there are plenty of players with deep postseason experience in the dressing room. Vince Dunn and Jaden Schwartz each won a Stanley Cup with St. Louis, Yanni Gourde won it twice with Tampa Bay, and Philipp Grubauer and Martin Jones have both been on Cup-winning teams as backup goalies.
Meanwhile, several other players have had extended playoff runs and have come close to winning hockey’s biggest prize.
Jordan Eberle went to the Eastern Conference Final with the Islanders in the bubble in 2020 and again in 2021, losing both times to Gourde’s Lightning. He said that team’s strength was its defensive structure and ability to frustrate opposing teams into making mistakes.
Eberle sees some similarities between the Kraken and his old team in New York, though their strengths are slightly different.
“The structure that we have and the way that we play [are similar],” Eberle said. “I wouldn’t say we’re as defensively minded, but I think we’re also a lot better probably offensively.”
During the 2020 bubble, Oleksiak was a key cog in the Dallas Stars defensive machine, helping them to a surprise appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. They too were defeated by Gourde and the Lightning.
That experience gave Oleksiak a good understand of the mindset Seattle needs as it enters the postseason.
“You have to accept the fact that you’re not gonna go 16-0,” Oleksiak said. “I mean, there’s going to be some ups and downs, there’s going to be times when somebody makes a mistake or you’re down a goal, and it’s really a matter of not losing that mentality and not losing that next-shift-up [approach] and having a really short memory.”
As a member of the Blue Jackets, Oliver Bjorkstrand never got “deep” into the playoffs, per se, but he was a part of the Columbus group that upset Tampa Bay with a four-game sweep in 2019. He said the biggest key to success for that team was the way it came together and didn’t waiver in its approach, even when it got behind.
“I think in Game 1, we got behind a few goals,” Bjorkstrand said. “And in the locker room, we stuck with it, kept going, and we got a goal. And we kind of fed off of it and never gave up.”
That led to four straight wins and an indelible series victory.
As Seattle heads off to face the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Kraken players know it is an uphill battle. Yet, Bjorkstrand and others in the room have proven on previous teams that even underdogs can win in the playoffs.
“We went in as underdogs,” Bjorkstrand said of that Tampa Bay series. “We knew that, but we didn’t really care. We just went out there and gave it our all, and that’s kind of what gave us success when I was there.”
A potential boost for Seattle hockey
Playoff hockey is unlike anything else in sports. Each series has a unique character and a level of intensity that starts with the drop of the puck in Game 1 and doesn’t subside until one team wins its fourth game and moves on. It’s the kind of thing that can really help the sport grow in popularity in a new market, especially if the team can have some success. Once fans start believing in their squad and hating the opposition, they will be hooked for life.
“You look at Seattle and the sports fans and how they support the Seahawks and Sounders and everything, I think they’re really invested in their teams,” Oleksiak said. “And we hope that we get the same atmosphere here. I think they’ve been great for us all year, and I think they definitely deserve a good playoff experience.”
Bjorkstrand recalls the fervor surrounding Columbus after the Blue Jackets took down the mighty Lightning in 2019.
“That was huge,” he said. “I mean, we never won one playoff series in Columbus, so I could feel the excitement, and it was the most fun I’ve had in the NHL, winning that series. I wish [our playoff run] could have gone longer. We gave it a good push in the next round, but I felt it in the city. So it was definitely a special moment.”
Will there be a “special moment” or two over these next few weeks? If so, the Kraken fanbase could grow astronomically.
Can the Kraken beat the Avalanche?
We know the odds are stacked high against Seattle in this series against the Avs. That said, there is a path to victory for this team in the opening round. This is an interesting matchup on paper, because Colorado boasts some elite, high-end players at the top of their lineup, both at forward and defense. Seattle, on the other hand, rolls four dangerous lines that come at you in waves and can produce goals from anywhere.
So how can Seattle win?
“We have to try and get to our four-line-rolling mentality and winning those matchups,” Eberle said. “I think obviously you want to try and shut down their big key players. They have a couple 100-point guys there that are pretty dangerous, so we have to try and limit the chances that they create and then create offense out of that.”
Added Oleksiak, “We’re obviously a team that has some good depth, and we play well when we play structured and we don’t give up too many chances. And I think we just have to focus on that, and I think the results will come.”
It will be a tough series against a great team. Can Seattle do the damn thing?
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
It’s been a hard week for Sound Of Hockey. Our good friend, Andy Eide, one third of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, passed away Friday after suffering a stroke on March 18. In this episode, Darren and John pay tribute to their friend.
Andy would want the show to go on, and he would want the guys to talk about the Kraken and their upcoming playoff run, so that’s what happens next.
On this show, SOH also has interviews with Alex Wennberg and Seattle Thunderbirds coach Matt O’Dette.
If you can get through the sad parts at the beginning, it’s a pretty great episode.
With the Kraken now officially in the playoffs for the first time, John and Darren got together to record what they thought would be a half episode, but they got carried away and ended up recording a full episode. So, it’s kind of a “.5” episode, but there’s a lot of content here.
This one starts with plenty of Kraken talk and what the playoff berth means for Seattle. It then goes Down on the Farm, to the WHL, and eventually to Weekly One-Timers.
The guys then spend the remainder of the show answer questions from the Mailbag.
