Part 8, The Finale Of Our Seattle Hockey History Video Series
Editor's Note: I host a weekly YouTube show, Hockey Time Machine, most Thursdays at 4 pm Pacific time. Guests have included Hall of Famers Bryan Trottier, Yvan Cournoyer and Lanny McDonald.
Today, our final video excerpt from a show we did with authors and historians about Seattle's century-plus of hockey history.
The Seattle Center Coliseum, on the same site where Climate Pledge Arena now stands, was almost the first home for Seattle NHL hockey.Place your thumb and index finger just far enough apart to see daylight. Now you know how close Seattle came, in two prior decades, to bringing NHL hockey to the region.
In the 1970s, Seattle was actually awarded a conditional franchise by the league. One of the conditions was having sufficient money to pay the entry fee, and the backers couldn't meet it. It also appeared the financially-strapped Pittsburgh Penguins might be relocating from the Steel City to the Emerald City. That bid fell through, too.
In the 1990s, one of the expansion franchises which ultimately went to Ottawa and Tampa Bay was slated for Seattle. This time, there were whispers that a major financial backer - one of the city's most prominent sports families - actually sabotaged the bid they were supposed to be championing.
As we now know, it took until 2021 for the first regular-season NHL game to be played in Puget Sound, by the Seattle Kraken. Learn about those two earlier failed attempts to win an NHL franchise in the video clip below.