Mapping The Hockey Journey Through KCI Access

Martin Hlinka moved from his native Slovakia to Minnesota as a teenager to jumpstart a hockey career that eventually went professional.

Now, as the Kraken’s youth hockey director, his goal is bettering playing conditions and competition for local amateur players so they won’t always need to go elsewhere to continue their sport. That’s admittedly a work in progress for all of the region’s hockey associations, though Hlinka, 49, has seen a definitive uptick in registration and caliber of play among Seattle-based teams at Kraken Community Iceplex since it first opened five years ago today.

“We started with 72 players and in a year, we almost doubled that to a little under 200,” Hlinka said. “Then we doubled that again and this year, when we opened our registration, we were at a little over 500 players. So, we’ve gone from six teams to 42 teams. I believe it’s awesome growth and a lot of fun.”

The three NHL-sized rinks at KCI have been a game changer for youth and adult hockey players alike looking to learn and continue the sport within city limits. Prior to KCI opening, there had not been a new indoor ice facility with public access built in Seattle in more than 40 years.

KCI’s proximity to a Light Rail station has also enabled players from other communities to easily travel to KCI and enjoy state-of-the-art facilities built with $90 million in all-private Kraken funding.

Growing the game locally has been a Kraken goal since Oct. 2018 inception and exposing more youth and adults to hockey is key. The Kraken Youth Hockey Association features entry level Learn to Play classes for ages 5-to-9, recreational house league play for ages 7-to-18, select teams for ages 9-to-14 and Tier 1 AAA play on 14-Under, 16U and 18U teams

At the same time, the adult Kraken Hockey League has become a primary destination for men and women ages 18-and-over seeking coed or all-female play. This past season totaled 172 teams spread across 10 divisions and five subdivisions.

There are also more than 20 tournaments staged annually at KCI for youth and adults, drawing players from around the region, state, country and planet to Seattle’s first triple-rink facility.

These include the annual Voyager’s Cup girls-only tournament in January featuring 15 girls’ teams in 10U, 12U and 14U brackets, including squads from Alaska and Canada. And this summer’s Lost Anchor adult event, produced by the Kraken Hockey League, that drew 26 teams. Other tournaments include the Can-Am Seattle Youth Challenge Cup in late November and mid-February, drawing co-ed teams from 9U to 14U and for the past two years featuring visits by the Nikko Icebucks 12U squad from Tokyo, Japan. The Seattle Women’s Hockey Club – this region’s first all-female adult league – holds its annual Puck Place Market event at KCI every March, while the Seattle Pride Classic event for LGBTQ+ players and allies takes place in June.

As for caliber of play amid the explosive growth, Hlinka, whose own career reached the AHL ranks, is careful not to overstate it. He correctly notes the Puget Sound area has long had successful youth programs, such as Sno-King on the Eastside, Seattle Junior Hockey Association and Everett Youth Hockey in Snohomish.

But the arrival of an NHL team, he added, along with Team USA winning men’s and women’s gold medals in hockey at the recent 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina has built on what was already in place and grown interest and competition throughout the region.

“It’s been fun to see the growth of the skill level,” he said. “A lot of kids that join our programs are from our Learn to Play or grassroots (endeavors). And now they’ve gotten to play for three or four years, so it’s gotten deeper. There are more kids playing hockey, so there’s a little more competition and that makes teams better.”

Kraken select teams compete as “Jr Kraken” while house league squads are known as “Jr Squid.” The Tier 1 AAA Jr Kraken teams are the elite and last January, the 16U team beat the Wenatchee Wild to win the Pacific Northwest Amateur Hockey Association championship -- akin to a state title -- and advance to the district playoffs in San Jose, California.

The 14U squad also similarly won a B-level PNAHA championship, both Jr Kraken high water marks thus far.

Hlinka’s own journey saw him leave his native Slovakian capital city of Bratislava in the mid-1990s at age 17 to play high school hockey for a season before joining NCAA Div. III Augsburg College, where he served as an alternate captain and helped the squad to a Frozen Four appearance ahead of a lengthy pro career in the U.S. and Europe.

“There was no internet in the 1990s when the borders opened so I did not have any clue where I was going,” Hlinka said of his journey from the former communist nation. “I was told high school hockey in Minnesota was the best but that’s as far as I knew.”

He hopes his Jr Kraken work opens more doors for local youth wanting to further their own careers.

For Andy Cole, director of Kraken adult hockey, it's more about prolonging careers beyond the elite competitive stage and focusing on fun. Cole’s goal is to not only allow those who’ve played competitively the chance to keep doing so but also give those trying the sport for the first time a place to call home.

“Just the number of new players has been great,” said Cole, who founded the Greater Seattle Hockey League back in 2001 ahead of joining the Kraken and melding his circuit into the current Kraken Hockey League two decades later. “I mean, we’ve probably brought in over 1,000 new people that never played hockey before and who are playing it right now.”

During the 2025-26 fall and winter season, the league had 172 teams. That’s well ahead of the 129 teams Kraken Hockey League opened with five years ago.

Cole, who in June received a national USA Hockey award for growing adult recreational play in Seattle, feels one of the biggest potential areas for the sport’s local expansion lies in female participation. He said the adult Learn to Play market went from 15% female participation to nearly 50% -- helped in part by the arrival of the Seattle Torrent women’s pro team using KCI as a home base.

“Women are our fastest growing hockey population,” said Cole. “They make up half of our current Learn to Play classes, which feed into the League. It’s exciting to see this kind of growth.”

The “community” mandate of KCI has also grown, as its name might suggest. The Starbucks Community Store dedicates a percentage of profits directly to the One Roof Foundation (ORF) to support local youth programs, including field trips for local Title I schools and scholarship funding for KCI programming.

ORF has used that funding on several ventures, including a partnership with Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA) to bus children ages 5-and-under from underrepresented communities over to KCI and also coach them in a 32-week Learn to Skate class. The partnership graduated its fifth cohort of students in June, many hailing from places like Mongolia, Ethiopia and Ecuador, where hockey is relatively unheard of.

Tiffany Keene, who was born in China, said her son, Rufus, and daughter, Phoebe, were the first people from her immigrant family to ever play hockey. She said the experience has boosted their self-confidence.

“Having the ability to take the bus over to the Kraken and learn how to skate and just have fun, that’s pretty special,” she said. “They get to do this with their classmates and can encourage one another. So, just cheering on and having fun, having a good time is very important. I like that there’s not a true structure here. I see how the coaches encourage them and get them to have fun and explore what they can do on the ice.” 

KCI has also served as a venue where more advanced players from other countries can gain exposure to North America ahead of pursuing hockey dreams.

The Nikko Icebucks, a 12U team from the Tokyo area, have performed very well at recent Can-Am Challenge Cup events at KCI. Their visits began nearly two years ago, spawned by talks between Kraken chief operating officer Rob Lampman and Icebucks’ counterpart Hiyoki Takayukia, who’d worked together for the FIFA world soccer governing body at the 2002 men’s World Cup hosted by Japan and South Korea.

Hockey in Japan is still not widespread and the tournament visits enable the young Icebucks to see NHL games and Kraken practices up close. They also train at KCI between games and gain on-ice instruction from Jr Kraken coaches.

Last January, the Icebucks defeated the Oakland Bears from California to win the Challenge Cup tournament.

“They faced a different style of hockey, new environments and the challenge of playing away from home,” said Icebucks head coach Nobumase Kinugasa, a native of Kobe, Japan who once played semi-pro hockey in North Carolina and Quebec. “But they supported each other and kept pushing to the end. For the players, I think the biggest takeaway was confidence. They realized they can compete at a high level outside of Japan and that their teamwork and effort truly matter.”

And for Kraken youth hockey director Hlinka, crossing an ocean to experience the sport at its top levels is something that hits home. An experience he wants to see continue, for players here and abroad, as KCI enters its sixth year.

“We’re coming,” Hlinka said. “We aren’t there yet and it may take a few years. But the journey matters.”