Pucks in Place: The Tradition of the Playoff Puck Board

Many Kraken faithful know the story of the Davy Jones hat. It's something that gets awarded to the player of the game in every team win. We've been able to share in the ceremony of it after the fact thanks to the team's social media.

But avid viewers have noted something else going on - after the hat is awarded, so too is a puck, and the game's MVP walks over to a Kraken-themed board and pounds the puck into one of the 16 puck-shaped holes with authority.

Welcome to the tradition of a playoff puck board.

If you take a quick poll around the Kraken locker room, no one knows when or how the tradition started. Jordan Eberle remembers seeing one his first year with the Edmonton Oilers and Jamie Oleksiak saw them during his tenure in Dallas. And while each team's board can take on its own unique shape and design every post-season, the concept remains the same - mark each win that is required to win a championship.

It takes 16 victories to win the Stanley Cup and so among the sea and sky design that is interlaced with tentacle artwork on the Kraken board, there are 16 spots waiting to hold a game-winning puck. Six are full so far.

"It's cool. I think, it's a nice visual, right?" Oleksiak said. "It's not just like you're just going (game after game), you actually have something you're reaching for and some kind of goal that you're reaching each day. I think it's cool."

The players know what the board is for and what it takes to fill the board, but the responsibility of getting the puck board falls to head equipment manager, Jeff Camelio.

You never want to jinx the opportunity to make the NHL playoffs, so the team waited until the Kraken had clinched a spot to order this year's board. Once a post-season berth was secured, Camelio turned to Pakmark LTD out of Winnipeg, MB. Pakmark created the design, Camelio approved it, and the physical board was in his possession a few days later.

The morning of the first game of Round 1, the board made its debut in the locker room.

"There wasn't a formal presentation or anything," Oleksiak said. "But you see it up there. You know what it is. And (it's there) right from the beginning, because Round 1 is sometimes the hardest round. I think it's a cool tradition. I like it."

Once a puck is placed in the board, it's there for good. Each hole is perfectly shaped to hold the rubber disc that is fresh from game play. And when the team goes on the road, so too does the puck board. Camelio places it face down in the original box it came in, and then wedges some packing material behind it so not a single puck moves or comes loose during travel.

"It's in its box," Camelio said. "It's safe."

It's meaningful to note that within the board's design, the four pucks required for a Round 1 win sit at sea level. As the playoffs progress, the pucks that would represent a series win sit higher and higher up a peak with the final 16th puck that would mark a Stanley Cup win sitting above the rest…with the Kraken's notorious red eye looking out from the background.

"It's kind of (like a) mountain, right?" Eberle said. "You try to check off pucks (which represent wins). . .to get to the top. That's the biggest thing (about playing for a championship). You can't really see it and you start to get closer and closer and closer and that gives you hope."