“We’re here to create this huge game for them and make it feel just like any other paid program would where they get to play for something,” Keniston said. “They’re going to win medals. They’re going to be celebrated. They’re going to get photos.”
The Seattle Kraken Fan Development Team runs a Power Play Ball Hockey after-school club, operating in 11 schools across four districts with more than 300 participants. The program is supported by the One Roof Foundation (ORF), the charity arm of the Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena, and sponsored by Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. ORF supports the program through Ball Hockey Kit Donations and has donated more than 10,000 sticks and pinny jerseys to 235 Title 1 Schools statewide, along with training for 163 schoolteachers.
Capturing the Maplewood Heights championship and replica Cup was no easy task this year in a back-and-forth affair, the Hi-Tech squad won 7-6 in sudden death overtime. The Krushing team, which had handed Hi-Tech its only regular season loss, overcame a 3-0 early deficit, took a 4-3 lead, and then gave it back up before a see-saw third period ended with the score even.
Goalies were removed for the sudden-death overtime session – in a bid to hasten an ending – but defenders from both teams made spectacular stick saves amid screaming spectators hovering on the edges of their sideline seats. When the winning goal finally went in, the elated Hi-Tech team leaped up and down in front of parents and students doing the same from the crowd while the emotionally drained Krushing players wiped their eyes or buried their heads in their hands.
There was good reason for that outpouring of emotion: Students at the school wait all year for a chance to win the coveted Cup – which is kept in the victorious squad’s classroom by their teacher and team captains for viewing but, in keeping with NHL tradition, cannot be held by any students other than those on the championship team.
“We keep it in our room, and we keep it safe,” said teacher Ros Penk, the latest Cup keeper, whose students won last year’s title. “And we also use it to get students excited about playing next year.”
Penk described how students will enter her classroom daily hoping to see the Cup. The winning team writes their name in marker on the trophy, but it gets touched so often by students that Penk said all the signatures have been rubbed off it.