Giving Hockey To The Community

Kraken centerman Shane Wright can only imagine what it would have been like if an NHL player had come to visit his elementary school and play some ball hockey with students while growing up in the Toronto area.

“I would have been so, so excited,” he said. “It wouldn’t have mattered who it was. If there had been an NHL player coming to a school in my hometown I would have been pretty excited for sure.”

That never happened for Wright, 20, but he recently got a taste of what might have been from a different perspective as he traveled with Kraken mascot Buoy to Ridgeview Elementary School in Shoreline for an afternoon of ball hockey. Wright and Buoy were part of a One Roof Foundation contingent launching the latest round of Ball Hockey Kit donations to a planned 30 Title-1 schools – those with high numbers or high percentages of students from lower-income households -- across Washington State during the 2024-25 season.

“That was fun – I enjoyed that,” Wright said. “I think it’s really important to kind of give back to the community and we’re really fortunate to be in that position as role models and people that kids can look up to.”

Wright and Buoy were both there to hand out the kits – which include 48 floorball sticks, 60 ball hockey balls, 50 Kraken reversible pinnies, two pop-up goals, 2 NHL-style PVC goals and a Kraken equipment bag – sign autographs and lead about 100 students in playground ball hockey sessions outside. The students were divided into groups at three stations – a stickhandling drill around cones, a passing drill and a ball hockey game.

Wright, at one point, showed students how to “juggle” a ball with their stick. At one point, he got up to 100 as the students eagerly counted down.

The Kraken have made kit donations to more than 225 schools since the team’s 2021 inception and plan to reach the 250-school mark this fall.

Ridgeview dean of students Lachrista Borgers said the visit to her school was important on multiple levels. Her students speak 27 languages, some coming from as far away as Ethiopia, The Philippines, Mexico, Venezuela and Guatemala and hailing from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.

And while some of the students had never tried hockey before, she was impressed by how quickly they began “coming together, being collaborative and cheering for each other” as they played.

“When I think of the Kraken, I think of my hometown team,” Borgers said. “I watched it come together, so this feels like home. But I also think community is a two-way street. And so, it’s great for the Kraken to come out and give kids this experience. But I also think it’s important for the folks on the Kraken team to feel blessed by our students and their diversity and their languages and all the places they come from because community is both ways.”

Wright certainly came away from his visit with a smile.

“I mean, that’s cool for me just having that experience to be around those kids,” he said. “Seeing how excited they are to see me and be around me and just play and have fun.”

List of schools receiving kits in 2024-25: