Jim Moore: I’m the president of the Kraken Know-Nothing Fan Club, and this should be fun

If you’re a longtime NHL fan, this column might make you wonder where I’ve been, arriving unfashionably late, trying to get up to speed before the playoffs start but no doubt splatting somewhere on the ice before the first postseason puck is dropped.

I raise my hand and admit that my hockey knowledge is very limited. In fact, I’m president of the Kraken Know-Nothing Fan Club and can only guarantee that our weekly meetings are more fun than those held by the Kraken Know-It-All Fan Club, where members break it all down with hockey analytics that sound like a foreign language to all of my constituents.

The only thing we have in common with the Know-It-Alls is that we like to drink beer and bet on the games, the biggest difference being that the Know-It-Alls know what’s happening on the flat screen while us Know-Nothings are oblivious, trying to figure out where the puck is and what in the world those guys with sticks and skates are attempting to do out there.

Actually, we get that the main premise is to score more goals than the other team. We just have a hard time understanding offensive strategies, particularly when plays are seemingly set up only to be blown up so quickly by a defenseman who knocks the puck astray.

And generally speaking, we’re still trying to understand the huge appeal to the game. We’re open to it, wanting to get on the Kraken bandwagon, and we feel the time is now for that to happen.

Know-Nothings have been told that playoff hockey surpasses playoffs in other sports. The intensity is unmatched. We remain skeptical about that simply because playoffs in other sports ratchet up from the regular season too.

But we’re ready to see it, entering the playoffs with a less-than 101 grasp of the game, looking to develop a greater appreciation for our local hockey team.

To this point at Know-Nothing meetings, we’ve discussed a variety of topics, including whether teams should pull their goalie right away to have a man advantage and improve their chances of getting off to a fast start.

Sound crazy? Not really. This is a sport that spends 60 minutes with guys skating 5 on 5 only to change it to 3 on 3 in overtime. Imagine if they did that in the NBA or went to 7-on-7 in NFL overtimes.

We had our best meeting right after Thanksgiving. The Kraken beat the Kings 9-8 in overtime, and in her comments on ROOT Sports, analyst Alison Lukan said it was a “shinny” game. This caused a colossal debate - did she say “shinny” or “bleepy?” - and truth of the matter, both terms fit.

Come to find out that “shinny” hockey is kind of like thrown-together hockey, messy in some respects. But a 9-8 score - even if it sounds like fun to the Know-Nothings - is not acceptable in the hockey world for reasons unknown. That’s why bleepy worked too. And for those of us who had never heard of “shinny” before that night, it made it seem like Lukan must have said bleepy because at least we’d heard of that word.

But to be honest, at most of our Know-Nothing meetings we quaff quite a few pitchers, hoping that the beer buzz might make what we’re watching more interesting. Even at that, some nights we ask the bartender if he could please change the channel to the NFL Network to see what Aaron Rodgers is up to or watch bowling and see if one of these guys can pick up a 6-7-10 split.

From what I’ve seen, like crashes in NASCAR races, we enjoy the hockey fights more than anything else, guys dropping their gloves and getting after it, punished only by time in a penalty box.

Even though it doesn’t sound like it, we don’t want to be hockey ignoramuses forever. So I’ve invited Mike Benton of the Kraken Audio Network to our Saturday night meeting to prepare us for the start of the playoffs on Monday.

I’m not calling Benton a Know-It-All because that has a negative connotation. He just knows the sport inside and out without being condescending to those of us who don’t.

Benton will regale us with stories about the history of the Stanley Cup and the tradition of never touching the Cup until you’ve won it, lest you jinx the chance of it ever happening.

He’ll tell us about basic hockey terms as they pertain to the playoffs such as the time-honored “you can ride a hot goalie all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.” My favorite is the beard-growing tradition in which players don’t shave until they’ve won the Cup or are eliminated.

In a tribute of solidarity, Know-Nothings will let their beards grow as long as the Kraken are alive and take umbrage at anyone suggesting we’re just too lazy to shave, which is also the case, but we’ll lie about that.

In my lame attempt to graduate from Know-Nothing to Know-Something, I will constantly say the Kraken have a shot at doing damage in the playoffs because they have one of the best road records in the NHL. If you can win on the road, you have a shot to advance from one series to the next, even as a wild-card team.

I will hope that Benton smiles and nods his head and pats mine, embracing the potential of our clueless little club as the Kraken embark on their first trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Jim Moore has covered Washington’s sports scene from every angle for multiple news outlets. You can find him on Twitter @cougsgo, and on KJR-FM 93.3, where he co-hosts a sports talk show from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on weekdays.

This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 6:00 AM.