Senators at Kraken12.17.24
Seattle, WA
With the world juniors taking place in Ottawa this holiday season, the Senators have had to vacate the Canadian Tire Centre for a few weeks. The result is a nine game road trip, with legs before and after the holiday break. The longest road trip in franchise history. And it all started with this game against the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Living in Vancouver, just a few hours away by car, I knew I had to be there to support my team at this critical juncture of the season.
This is only the fourth season the Kraken have been in the NHL, so Climate Pledge Arena is still the newest arena in the league. And it's absolutely gorgeous, easily the most impressive arena I've visited so far. Everything just felt so clean and new. It felt like they took a lot of inspiration from T-Mobile Park (home of the Seattle Mariners) with the high end food options spread throughout the concourse. And this concourse was a bit of a maze, but it made it so that you could pretty easily maneuver around the slow walkers! We had tickets in the AMEX hall, which had restaurants and washrooms exclusive to the section. So there was hardly any wait to grab food at the intermission (we got some pizza). And I have to give a special shoutout to the Kraken fans; they were all just so lovely and seemed genuinely happy to welcome visiting fans.
This being my first time supporting the Senators in an away barn, it couldn't have gone any better on the ice. Linus Ullmark and company put together a 3-0 shutout victory with goals from Shane Pinto, Noah Gregor, and Tim Stützle. Pretty sweet not having to sit through the home crowd celebrating any goals!
