“It’s exciting and daunting and scary. … You just want to do right for Seattle and bring great players and hopefully pick a name where we won’t get too many people mad at us.” – Jerry Bruckheimer

The exciting journey that is Tour de National Hockey League just got a bit more exciting: we’ve got a 32^nd stop on the Tour! Earlier today, the NHL Board of Governors unanimously voted to approve an expansion franchise in Seattle, Washington. The yet to be named team is set to begin play in the 2021-2022 season as a member of the Pacific Division.

This is unsurprising but still incredibly exciting news, as it gives hockey fans like myself another adventure to a great city for a game. And Seattle is a perfect pick for an NHL team for a number of reasons! What are those reasons? Glad you asked!

Seattle has deep history in the sport of hockey.

Well how can that be? Well, sports fans, the Emerald City had a hockey team long before the Original Six even existed. Back in 1915 (in the pre-NHL days), the Seattle Metropolitans became the second American team to join the old Pacific Coast Hockey Association (the first being the fiercely intimidating Portland Rosebuds). The Metropolitans had great success in their nine PCHA seasons, winning five regular season titles and the 1917 Stanley Cup over Montreal. In fact, the Metropolitans were the first American team to win the Cup; if not for a pesky Spanish Flu epidemic, they may have won the 1919 Finals too.

Even today, hockey has a presence in Seattle with the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds. This junior team has kickstarted the careers of dozens of NHL stars, including Matthew Barzal, Ken Daneyko, Patrick Marleau, and Shea Theodore. It’s a perfect market for a professional team!

Seattle has passionate sports fans.

Seahawks fans are notorious for their crowd noise and their devoted support of the city and its football team. CenturyLink Field in Seattle is often regarded as one of the toughest places for opposing teams to play because of the crowd noise. And the Sounders have one of the most famously passionate fan bases in Major League Soccer, regularly finishing among the top teams in attendance annually. Both teams have also won championships in recent history, with the Hawks winning Super Bowl 48 and the Sounders winning the 2016 MLS Cup.

Seattle will have a brand new arena to play in (sort of).

The new team will begin play at KeyArena in 2021, which isn’t a new arena per se (it was built in 1962), but the ownership group announced a $700 million renovation to the building that will modernize and expand facilities for fans and players alike. By the time the building opens in 2021, the only remnant of the 1962 building will be the roof.

The arena is located in the Seattle Center, a couple square-block park that also houses the Space Needle, Pacific Science Center, Museum of Pop Culture, and the Seattle Children’s Museum. It’s not far from Downtown Seattle, and it even looks like there’s a monorail from the Center to Downtown. So it should be easy to and from the venue.

The team will (most likely) have a really cool name.

So what will this new team be called? Back in January 2018, The Hockey News posted a list of possible team names with respective betting odds. The three favorites were the Emeralds (after the city’s nickname among the green forests of the Pacific Northwest), Totems (a nod to the various native inhabitants of Washington), and Rainiers (after Mount Rainier). My personal favorites from the list would be Evergreens, Firebirds, and Emeralds, but there are also rumors the team could resurrect the old Metropolitans nickname. Perhaps that would bring some Stanley Cup mojo to the city.

Seattle is very close to Vancouver.

It’s only 140 miles from Seattle to Vancouver, so this new team will make a double hockey trip out West that much easier. Which is really great, because it’s kind of hard to justify all that time and money spent to fly from North Carolina to British Columbia just for a hockey game. But now we can kill two birds with one stone: the Canucks and the Metropolitans (or whatever the team will be called). The two cities are an easy couple-hour train ride apart.

So I’m personally thrilled for Seattle. It’s an exciting city that will make for a fun double trip with Vancouver, and hopefully the team will enjoy the same success in its first season that Vegas did in its’. Because THAT worked out well! Regardless of what the team is called or which players they draft, I’m excited that Tour de National Hockey League is now a 32-city adventure!