Art from Pucks

It all usually happens in a blur. Before any NHL game, teams take to the ice for warmups, and as some 20 players from each side burst onto the rink, so too does a flurry of pucks that bounce and carom around the playing surface after the first few skaters knock the rubber discs off the boards that sit in front of the players' bench.

But before this explosion of energy, if you look a little more closely, there's something else to see: it's art. Made out of pucks. And it's all thanks to Jesse Potts, one of the Kraken's locker room attendants.

Potts is one of five attendants who work with the team on game nights. The attendants help set up the locker room, bench areas and penalty boxes prior to any game. They make sure that all the necessary equipment is in place. That includes everything from Gatorade, sticks and tape to a stack of 50 warmup pucks.

When the crew started stacking the pucks for preseason games, they used a classic pyramid formation. But then, creativity took over.
"We were just thinking how it would be cool to do puck art," Potts said. "We weren't sure if we would be allowed to at first but then we got the clear from (head equipment manager) Jeff (Camelio)."

Camelio was happy to give the green light. He's worked with teams at all levels of men's hockey, including the ECHL, AHL and NHL, and says puck art is something that every staff tries to do whether it's mimicking other ideas they've seen or even trying to one-up what other teams build.
"I said yeah, go ahead, go crazy," Camelio said. "As long as we have the correct amount of pucks for warmups, you guys can do whatever designs you want."

Permission granted, the team got to work. A software developer by day, Potts had already seen a bunch of different design ideas on the internet. First, he built an anchor. After that, a ribbon to mark the Kraken's Hockey Fights Cancer game at home.

Excited at what they were able to build, Potts set his sights on a new and challenging idea - could he build the iconic Kraken "S" logo out of pucks?
"An 'S' made out of pucks is really hard," Potts said. "It took a few iterations to get right. I spent time during the day plotting it out in an Excel worksheet just to theorize what could possibly work; and I have about 13 pucks at home, so I didn't have enough to do the full 50 but I was doing small portions of it on my desk to see if it would hypothetically hold up. I finally got it to work eventually, and that was fun."

Now, whenever inspiration strikes, Potts and the rest of the attendants will build something with a Kraken flair as that game's puck art. There's been a version of the Space Needle, and even when a new Seattle-specific idea doesn't come to mind, the classic pyramid structure is a thing of the past, "We like to keep it fresh," Potts says.

Even a tower of pucks will have a unique spiral twist, or a "cool looking" stack. Some ideas still do take some planning, but most of them come together in the equipment room before warmups. Then about an hour before game time, the equipment team will get to work building that game's puck art on the boards.

"(Potts) is the ringleader for sure," Camelio said. "And everyone is in the back saying, 'yeah, I think we can do this,' or 'I think we should move this.'"
But helping out the equipment staff is more than just a gameday activity for Potts.

He says not enough people understand the work equipment managers do and he's created an Instagram to share not just the puck art he and his colleagues build, but also behind-the-scenes views into all the work and support equipment managers provide to a team and an organization.

"What we do is very rewarding," Potts said.
Instagram from @seattleequipment: Puck art of the day! 🏒 use #KrakenPuckArt to show us any puck art of your own #SeattleKraken #NHL #Hockey #PuckArt #SeaUsRise #AnchorDown

While Potts says he will likely stick with his software development career long term, hockey has been a passion of his for a while; and now with an opportunity to be even closer to the game, he's loving every second of his time working with the Kraken. He even recently joined his first rec league hockey team.

So, the next time you're in Climate Pledge Arena, get there before the players take to the ice. You might just see a little bit of art set up on the bench courtesy of Potts and crew.

"He has gone to the next level with designing puck art on the computer and then practicing them before he actually puts them out there, that's for sure," Camelio said. "He has been great."