Seattle SPORTs Now

The Seattle Mariners, who have batted a putrid .219 on the season, have begun to make some moves. Yesterday, the Mariners acquired outfielder Randy Arozarena from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for minor leaguers Aiden Smith (the team's number 12 prospect according to Baseball America ), an outfielder and right-handed pitcher Brody Hopkins (number 29). "We need to start solving our problems," Mariner general manager Justin Hollander told the Seattle Times last week and that was even before a horrendous 1-5 homestand against division rivals Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels. The Mariners were swept by the Angels of Anaheim (minus Mike Trout), who are mired in fourth place. The M's who led the Astros by ten games in June, saw their lead disappear quicker than Joe Biden's presidential campaign and now trail Houston by a game in the standings. Arozarena, a 29-year-old Cuban native, burst on the scene in 2020, when after playing 23 games in the regular season, he ...

 Seattle likes being a city of firsts, and the cities National Hockey League affiliate reflects that. Yesterday to no great surprise, the Kraken announced yesterday the addition of Jessica Campbell to the team's coaching staff.  Campbell, an assistant coach with the AHL Coachella Valley Firebirds last season, becomes the first female fulltime assistant with an NHL franchise. Joining Campbell behind the bench will be Bob Woods, a veteran of 11 years as an assistant with the Minnesota Wild, Anaheim Ducks and Washington Capitals, who also owns a Calder Cup championship as head coach of the Hershey Bears. Campbell and Woods replace Paul McFarland, who was let go, and Jay Leach, who returned to the Boston Bruins' organization as an assistant coach. They join holdovers Dave Lowry and Steve Briere as members of the Kraken brain trust. There's been speculation that Campbell would join the Kraken after serving as new head coach Dan Bylsma's deputy at the AHL-affiliated Coach...

Happy NHL free-agent signing day to those who celebrate. The Seattle Kraken celebrated July 1 with two noteworthy free-agent acquisitions. Joining the Kraken are defenseman Brandon Montour, from the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and forward Chandler Stephenson, a front-line center with the Vegas Golden Knights when they won hockey's holy grail in 2023. At his press conference announcing the signings, Kraken general manager Ron Francis joked that he might need to borrow money from the assembled media after doling out a seven-year $50 million deal to Montour (7.1 a season) while Stephenson will collect 6.25 a year from the Kraken. "Players want to come to Seattle," said Francis. "They want to play for this organization, and they want to play for our great fans." With the addition of Montour and Stephenson, the Kraken now have at least one player who competed on the Stanley Cup champion in each of the last nine years. Montour and Stephenson are both 30-year...

  For the fourth consecutive year, the Seattle Kraken have selected a center-iceman as the number-one pick in the amateur draft. With the overall eighth pick, the Kraken selected Berkley Catton from the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League. Matty Beniers, the first-ever selection by the Kraken in 2021, made the selection at Sphere (not the Sphere) in Las Vegas. Catton, 18, a 5-11 native of Saskatoon, SK  comes off a 54-62-116 season. That placed him third in goals and fourth in points in the WHL. The NHL Central Scouting Bureau ranks Catton 8th among North American players. "We liked him. He's a gifted offensive player with good speed," said Kraken general manager Ron Francis. "He has a skill set to make plays. We think he's a high-end offensive player and we're happy to have him in the fold." Catton, who was on-hand in LV for the draft, sounded equally pleased with joining the Kraken organization. "This is so cool. Playing with Spokane, I...

  The story of how the Seattle Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena came to be is a long and arduous tale with more than its share of twists and turns. That journey, complete with political intrigue and a world-wide COVID lockdown, is chronicled in journalist Geoff Baker's book, Rising From The Deep. Baker had a front-row seat to Seattle's quest for an NHL team in his role as the Seattle Times' sports investigative reporter, a position designed to follow the machinations of Seattle's quest for a new arena. As someone living in Seattle, Baker was able to weave what was going on in the city at that time from traffic problems, the presence - and power- of companies like Amazon and Starbucks, a socialist elected to the Seattle City Council, a mayor resigning in disgrace, COVID-19 and `Big Bertha' (non-Seattleites can look it up). And they all played a role in the fight for a new arena. As a Seattle resident transplanted from the East Coast, I found Baker's views on Seatt...

With the widely rumored return of the Seattle Sonics, the Emerald City would surely be considered a `major league' city in the sports world. Of course, that wasn't always the case. The ill-fated Seattle Pilots came and went in 1969, but if you were a local sports fan your appetite was wetted by University of Washington football (Seattle's primary sports team for many years) and minor league baseball and hockey. But not many people know that a major league team - a world champion no less- moved to the Pacific Northwest in the winter of 1959-1960. The Chicago Westerners, the 1959 world champions in the wild-and-wacky pseudo sport of the Roller Derby appeared at the venue that was known as various times as the Seattle Civic Arena, Seattle Ice Arena and Mercer Arena. While the Ravens also skated games in Spokane and Portland, four games that were televised from the Civic Arena can be found on YouTube - two games apiece against the New York Chiefs and the Los Angeles Braves.  It...

Fifteen years ago, Dan Bylsma, the new Seattle Kraken head coach, was in the right place at the right time. On Feb. 15, 2009, a Pittsburgh Penguin team struggling to make the playoffs promoted Bylsma then coaching the Pens’ American Hockey League Wilkes-Barrie affiliate. Bylsma at 38, became the youngest coach in the National Hockey League. He compiled an 18-3-4 record for 40 points, the second most compiled by an NHL coach in his first 40 games. On June 12, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup making him the second mid-season coaching replacement to win a championship. No one’s expecting to Bylsma to duplicate that feat next season (although stranger things have happened) but there’s one similarity – the past two seasons, Bylsma has coached the Kraken’s AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, In fact, the Firebirds are still in action. They begin their Western Conference series final against the Milwaukee Admirals starting tonight (Mar. 29). Bylsma took time out from coaching...