Seattle has the most pretentious NHL team and it's been less than a week.

From their website: "In Seattle, we welcome voyagers. Our port city brings legends from all over the world. We cross boundless oceans and dense wilderness, finding beasts along the way. These legends are home to this rugged coastal wonderland with a name etched on Lord Stanley."

Yeah, whatever, nerds.

On top of the nearly nonsensical literary prose of their marketing campaign, the Kraken will be playing in the Climate Pledge Arena, named by Amazon overlord and billionaire space cowboy Jeff Bezos to ensure we'll be virtue signaling during every home game.

My home team, the San Jose Sharks, focus on the fans. They may not always make it to the playoffs, but damn if I'm not proud to slap a sticker saying "This is Sharks Territory" on whatever I own. Fan nights at the Shark Tank are always a good time, from Star Trek to Taco Night, and the fans remain loyal even after moving across the globe.

Will the Kraken's fanbase be the same? I doubt it. Seattle is full of fair-weather fans, no matter what the sport.

When I moved up here, I was ready to be a die-hard Seahawks fan, mostly to piss off my kid brother, a 49ers fan to the bitter end. That all changed when I witnessed an entire stadium empty out before halftime because the Seahawks were down two touchdowns in the second quarter. I was baffled. That's not how you treat your team.

The same goes for baseball. Giants fans' beef with the Dodgers is legendary, to the extent that people back home joke about not serving Dodgers fans. Hell, there's a Giants bar right here in Seattle, and they'll tell you the same thing. It's all in good humor, but I can say for sure I've wrinkled my nose when a guy's told me his team is the Dodgers. End of conversation, check please, thanks for playing.

Mariners fans only seem to have beef with themselves, blaming their lack of enthusiasm on their team's losing streak.

The Giants were not always the multiple championship-winning team they are today, and they're not the best team now, but fans stick with their team. We used to have ad spots run on local cable networks saying, "C'mon, Giants! Hang in there!"

That wouldn't happen in Seattle. The most dedicated fans I've met here had their basketball team taken from them in 2008. Based on conversations, their dedication to the SuperSonics is mostly to nostalgia, not the team itself.

Even Sounders fans seem to lose interest as soon as they're not in the league's top tier, and they're a great team.

The only teams I've seen with an active, engaged, and excited fanbase are The Reign and The Storm. The rest of this town can learn a thing or two by going to any of their games and soaking up the atmosphere as these athletes dominate again and again.

Maybe the Kraken will surprise me. Maybe hockey is the sport Seattleites need to bring them all together. We're pretty close to the Canadian border, after all, and those games in the bleak midwinter would give sports fans something to look forward to.

But, by-and-large, Seattle's sports fans seem more wrapped up in imagined prestige than in supporting a team no matter what. Maybe we should stick to tabletop RPGs.