The Kraken Chant

Lore & Background

When the Kraken took the ice for the first time in the 2021–22 season, Seattle arrived with a hunger that decades of expansion talk had built. The crowd was loud, but it was the rhythm that set the tone. Early in the season, a section of the lower bowl began a staccato, stomping repetition of the team's name—sharp, percussive, almost tribal. It caught. Within a week it had spread across the bowl, and within a month it was the default soundtrack of every home game, a two-beat pulse that rolled through the arena like a tide.

What makes the chant endure is its simplicity and its demand for participation. There is no melody to hum along to; it is pure rhythm, a physical act of stomping and shouting that pulls in even the most reluctant newcomer. The arena's acoustics, with its steep lower-bowl seating and open upper deck, amplify the effect so that the sound bounces back down onto the ice, and players have described feeling the vibration through their skates. It is, in a very literal sense, the crowd playing a position on the team.

The chant has also become a point of civic pride in a city that had long been defined by its other sports loyalties. To chant is to claim Seattle as a hockey town, and the act itself—thousands of people in black and teal, arms raised, voices in unison—has become one of the most recognizable images of the franchise's young identity.

In Their Own Story

The third period. Down by one. The clock reads 4:12 and the arena is a held breath. Then the puck is face-off'd in the neutral zone, and something shifts in the lower bowl. A single section starts the stomp. *KRA.* A beat. *KEN.* The sound hits the glass, bounces off the upper deck, and the next section catches it. Then the next. Within eight seconds the entire lower bowl is a single drum, ten thousand feet striking the concrete in unison, and the upper tier joins, and the sound is no longer a chant but a pressure wave, a physical force you feel in your sternum. The Kraken forward wins the draw, feeds the wing, the puck rips across the ice toward the net— and the roar that follows is the same rhythm, the same two syllables, stretched into a howl. The glass fogs. The sticks drop. And for thirty seconds, Climate Pledge Arena is not a building. It is a creature, breathing.

Reader's Guide

Climate Pledge Arena sits in Seattle's SODO district, a modern, angular structure whose exterior glass catches the Pacific Northwest light. Inside, the seating is steep and close to the ice, designed so that even the uppermost rows feel the vibration of the crowd. The lower bowl is where the chant lives—tight, loud, and electric.

The central tradition is the Kraken Chant itself: a call-and-response stomp-and-shout of the team's name that erupts after goals, during power plays, and in the final minutes of tight games. Fans are encouraged to stomp in time, and the rhythm is simple enough that a first-timer can join within one cycle. The arena's sound system amplifies the crowd, feeding the noise back into the bowl and creating a self-reinforcing wave.

The fanbase is as diverse as the city itself—Pacific Northwest outdoor types, tech-industry professionals, college hockey die-hards, families in matching teal, and a growing number of fans who discovered hockey only when the Kraken arrived. What unites them is a shared refusal to let Seattle be a city without a major-league hockey identity. The chant is how they say it, every night, in unison.

Did You Know?

• The Seattle Kraken made the Stanley Cup Playoffs in their very first NHL season (2021–22), a feat that electrified the young fanbase and cemented the chant as a symbol of the team's arrival.
• Climate Pledge Arena's name reflects a sustainability commitment, aligning the venue with Seattle's broader environmental identity.
• The Kraken's name and visual identity are drawn from the legendary deep-sea creature of maritime folklore, a fitting emblem for a Pacific Northwest city.
• Seattle had been one of the most frequently discussed NHL expansion markets for decades before the Kraken finally began play in 2021–22.