SEATTLE — Behold, a hockey bar.
It's 3:32 p.m. on Thursday, and the Angry Beaver is already bustling along Greenwood Avenue. Doors don't usually open for half an hour, but exceptions have been made. While owner Matt Baker beelines with buckets of ice between the bar and kitchen, early entries claim coveted tables facing 13 televisions.
"This will be a big, big night, for sure," a breathless Baker said.
In one hour and 53 minutes, the puck will drop for the 4 Nations Face-Off final between the United States and Canada. The Angry Beaver will fill with fans — fans in USA blazers, jerseys, bandannas and headbands; fans in stained sweaters representing both sides, as well as the Kraken, Red Wings, Panthers, Mighty Ducks and (for some reason) the University of North Dakota; fans who wear an American flag cape and cradle a hamburger in one hand and a beer in the other, because there's not a seat to spare.
Yes, this is a hockey bar.
Just not the one it was.
"This is what it used to be like during the playoffs," said Rich Pereira, a Greenwood resident who worked here years ago. "Every game, almost every day, people were out the door. There was no room in here. It was totally squished in."
Once, the Angry Beaver had four words proudly printed in chalk above its bottles, surrounded by the logos for all 32 NHL teams.
Seattle's original hockey bar
It had framed jerseys of Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe hanging from the rafters, and myriad other jerseys and pennants pinned to the walls. It had, perhaps, Seattle's only poutine flights. It had pucks, bobbleheads and memorabilia crammed in every nook and cranny, courtesy of previous owner Tim Pipes.
It had, Pipes wrote in a GoFundMe in Jan. 2024, a "never ending stream of bad luck."
After Pipes — a Toronto product — opened The Angry Beaver in 2012, he was rudely welcomed by an NHL lockout lasting nearly four months. Then the bar was damaged by a gas explosion on Greenwood Avenue in 2016. Then it closed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Then it closed again after pipes froze, burst and flooded the bar in 2024.
All of which prompted Pipes to sell the Angry Beaver. After receiving the keys last summer, Baker — the owner of 10 previous bars, notably the Magnolia Village Pub — strategically altered its image. He replaced hanging hockey jerseys (which were damaged by the flood) with a torrent of televisions. He held football watch parties for the WSU alum's beloved Cougs. He hosted meat raffles and trivia nights to bring in business.
Where four words were once printed above the bar's bottles, now there are only logos for all 32 NFL teams.
Which, Baker admits, has begged a question:
Is Seattle's original hockey bar ... still a hockey bar?
"We're a hockey bar ... but we're an all-around sports bar," said Baker, a Seattle native, who's donning a sweatshirt of the Everett AquaSox. "When I was doing my marketing (around reopening) I would get people giving me backlash, like, 'This guy doesn't know what he's doing.'
"I know exactly what I'm doing. This is driven by economics, nothing else. (It's) a sports bar. I'll show hockey, and we're still known as a hockey bar. But I'm going to show that Cougar football game. And unique things like this jam-pack your bar."
Besides, it's worth wondering if a dedicated hockey bar can succeed in Seattle after Pipes' business was wounded by a run of rotten luck. In nearly four seasons, the Kraken have produced a single playoff appearance, unable to rival the instant success of the Vegas Golden Knights. In terms of attention they trail the Seahawks and Mariners in the city's second tier.
That's despite selling 10,000 season-ticket deposits in the first 12 minutes, and 25,000 in an hour, in a flurry of expansion fervor in 2018. Though attendance at Climate Pledge Arena has subsequently impressed, the team's television ratings slipped and stagnated. Despite a playoff push in 2022-23, the Kraken averaged just 13,781 viewers and a 0.7 rating on ROOT Sports in the first eight games of the next season. The Kraken Hockey Network launched last fall, as the franchise partnered with KING 5/KONG and Amazon Prime to enhance exposure.
But as the Kraken sputter through another uninspiring season, what is the state of hockey fandom in Seattle?
"There's evidence that there's a passionate fan base," said Matt Farler, a Kraken season-ticket holder who claimed an Angry Beaver bar seat early Thursday. "The problem is, after the first three years (the initial minimum Kraken season-ticket commitment), there was a lot of people that bailed. Nowhere in that four years have I ever been able to sell a ticket for a game I couldn't go to on the secondary market for face value. There's just not a market for face value Kraken tickets.
"So the foundation's there. I just don't feel like it's growing."
Granted, it might be growing in other areas. The region also supports the Seattle Thunderbirds and Everett Silvertips. And when the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) made a cameo at Climate Pledge Arena in January, an announced attendance of 12,608 made a convincing bid for expansion.
But the reborn Angry Beaver mirrors a sports market where hockey remains a cog, not a king.
"I feel like the bar has gotten better (under Baker)," longtime patron Mike Vercammen said. "Because of those down times without hockey, it needed something else."
On Thursday, though, nothing else is needed. U-S-A chants drown the broadcast audio in a happy hockey bar. At 4:43 p.m. — more than 30 minutes before puck drop — the beer line curves halfway through the building. At 5:27, cheers ring as the teams engage in the first of several fights. At 6:01, an elderly man in a Red Wings jersey rhythmically shakes his fists, as if holding invisible maracas, after American winger Brady Tkachuk ties the score at 1. At 8:27, several sing "O Canada" in delirious defiance, after a Connor McDavid missile delivers Canada a 3-2 overtime win.
No, it isn't perfect. The bar runs out of Molson beer with five minutes left in the first period, compliments of the Angry Beaver's Canadian clientele. The lines for beer and bathrooms stretch longer than you'd like. The American flags and bandannas and headbands and blazers leave with a loss.
But for the new Angry Beaver, it's a big, big night.
"Initially, I was really scared (when the bar changed hands)," Farler said. "Because obviously Tim wanted to sell this place, and when Matt bought it we got the sense it wasn't going to be a hockey bar anymore. But I tell you what: we're in love with what Matt has done with the place.
"The hockey fans are still coming in. It's still a hockey bar because the fans are still in here, doing it. There doesn't need to be jerseys on the walls for it to be a hockey homestead."
The Angry Beaver is a microcosm for a wider sports market. On Thursday, it's a hockey bar because the people make it so.
Will Seattle ever be a hockey city?
"Oh, yeah," said Pereira, as if that's obvious. "It's the greatest sport in the world."
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