In the years leading up to and beyond the Kraken’s creation in December 2018, Bellevue entrepreneur Paul Kim was a familiar hockey presence at the upcoming team’s events alongside its founders and future executives.
A longtime youth player and fan, the South Korean-born Kim, who moved to Seattle at age 10, was still in college in 2014 when he acquired trademark rights to the name, “S” logo and colors of the defunct Seattle Metropolitans franchise and began selling branded merchandise in the team’s name. That preceded the 100th anniversary of the Metropolitans winning the 1917 Stanley Cup and as professional hockey’s imminent revival in Seattle gathered steam, Kim and his vintage-design merchandise became a fixture at local events alongside top Kraken brass and the Oak View Group company that overhauled what’s now Climate Pledge Arena.
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