From Screen Shot to Kraken Shared Values 

For Allison Bickford, her first memory when reminiscing about the early 2019 days of working for “NHL Seattle” at the team’s original office on West Harrison Street is looking at her cell phone to realize Ron Francis was calling.

“I still have a picture I took of my phone when Ron called me,” said the beloved and esteemed colleague we all call “Ali”. “His name popped up, and I thought, ‘How is it that I'm sitting here and Ron Francis [legendary NHL player and long-time GM] is calling my phone, with a question for me?’ That’s the epitome of my first moment where I thought, ‘Is this real life?’ ”

My first memory of Bickford is sitting next to her, and how thrilling it was to be working for an NHL team. My ‘epitome’ moment of becoming co-workers and friends was when I walked in one morning and exchanged hellos. Then Ali turned back to her laptop and said in a lyrical fashion: “aforementioned.” I had used the word in whatever current story was posted on our then NHLSeattle.com website.

I instantly smiled, and she broke into the bright-eyed, wide grin that has no doubt lifted the spirits of you-lose-count-after-a-hundred co-workers and dozens of leaders and staffers from corporate partners. Bickford, Kraken Vice President of Partnership Marketing, doesn’t miss the details nor the chance to both appreciate and empower her colleagues, especially those working in her purview.

The proof of her leadership effectiveness and respect comes through the fact that the partnership marketing group remains largely the same group recruited for the inaugural season rollout, plus the openings of Climate Pledge Arena and Kraken Community Iceplex. The team has grown, but most everyone first hired is still motivated to do the best integrations for the various tiers of corporate partners.

Getting ‘Everyone to Come Out Ahead’

Bickford could teach a master class in finding common ground, whether inside the workings of an NHL franchise or delivering tangible results for corporate partners.

It’s about having really strong relationships and understanding that everyone has their own objectives," said Bickford. "I am trying to understand those objectives and how our department can specifically help reach the objectives while still acknowledging that we have revenue targets to hit. The thing I bring to the table most is looking for a greater understanding and desire for everyone to come out ahead as opposed to focusing just on whatever outcome I need [for partnership marketing].”

Providing tangible results for founding corporate partners was undeniably challenging for a team yet to be named, still building the arena and training center, while months and months away from playing. Nonetheless, Oak View Group executive Ryan Brach, Kraken chief commercial officer Jeff Webster and Bickford were successfully bringing partners into the fold of the yet-to-be-named Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena.

“One of the stories I tell the most is Symetra coming on board,” said Bickford. “They had signed on even before I fully joined [in August 2019], two years before anything was real because of the vision that Tod [CEO Tod Leiweke] explained and the shared values of our organizations.

Sharing the Values and Dreams

The shared values that attracted Symetra and other founding partners, such as Muckleshoot and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, haven’t adjusted or bent to bottom-line influence. That’s something Bickford and her colleagues are proud of. Those shared values include commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and building a better community in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, among others.

“From Day One, it was the DEI initiatives,” said Bickford when asked how partners signed on without the usual physical structures and customer flow to market partner brands. “Having that commitment to diversity, especially given what was going on at the time, the Black Lives Matter movement. We continue to lean in on it. It’s been something that continues to validate the feeling when we talked the big talk in 2018 and 2019. We're still one of the teams willing to push on it, such as our Common Thread nights [Thursday’s home game, for example, is Pride Night presented by Symetra] as we've seen other teams just stop doing it.”

Bettering the Seattle and PNW community is an area of focus and results. Bickford said a number of local and regional partners were moved to get involved in their first sports sponsor enterprise with the Kraken because of the, ahem, aforementioned shared values.

“It was a desire to be associated with a Pacific Northwest team, plus showing up out in the community. Think about KCI [Kraken Community Iceplex]. It is impressive to partners and the community when you look at what this building does for Northgate [neighborhood], building the light rail and providing free public transit. There are just all of these ways in which we're not just trying to make money, we're trying to better the community. I think that's helped maintain this really strong Seattle-based partner group that we have. Having that Seattle culture and base truly validates our mission.”

Taking to the Sport, Then the Ice

Though she was an avid NHL fan growing up in New Jersey, Bickford never played the game until moving to Seattle.

“I loved hockey as a kid,” said Bickford. “I followed the Devils because they were good. But I was a soccer player my whole life. It wasn't until I came out here that [Kraken Assistant GM] Alex Mandrycky’s husband, Christian, signed up for the adult learn to play program with Andy Cole [Kraken Director of Adult Hockey]. Alex asked if I wanted to do it with him. It was the spring of 2021. That was the first time I ever played hockey.”

Bickford now plays in the adult Kraken Hockey League and is also a regular in a Friday morning drop-in skate at the Iceplex hosted by John Barr, who founded the NHLtoSeattle movement and currently operates the popular Sound of Hockey podcast and website.

“The speed of the game is something that still blows me away,” said Bickford. “In John's Friday morning skate, I'm easily one of the five worst there because these guys are all playing in Division 1 or Division 2 of the KHL adult league. I'm in Division 6 [of 10], so I'm easily one of the slowest people out there. I tell myself the difference in speed between the best player on Friday morning is closer than the difference in speed from the best player on Friday morning to an NHL player.

“It’s just wild for me to think about what NHL players do on ice skates. I always tell partners at their first game, “Pick one guy, just watch him during his shift, watch the entire shift, don't take your eyes off him. Then, when he gets back to the benc,h and you stop thinking about him, remind yourself he just did all of that while on ice skates.’”

Fervent Friends, Caring Co-Workers

Like so many colleagues at the Kraken organization, Bickford has learned new activities via friends she makes inside the organization. She has become an avid skier and golfer getting to know the arena executives, Vice President of Technology, Dave Curry, and Vice President of Marketing, Rosie Selle. Bickford’s desk, amid the partnership group’s rows, always seems filled with colleagues and smiles and, well, that warm and satisfying feeling of knowing stuff is getting done rather than just talked about. There’s work-life balance (several of her staff have started families during their tenures with the team) and work-fun balance too.

“I wake up every day thanking my lucky stars that [original partnership marketing staffers] are almost all still here and certainly the core group has been here since before Day One for the Kraken,” said Bickford. “That’s the culture of our org and group. They want to be here and they want to be part of it. They are given a ton of responsibility and they're valued. It's cyclical, because if we had partners who were just trying to throw their logo places, our marketing, ticketing, and community staffs would say, “Oh great, this group again, we have to go deal with them.’ But when you have a partner like Symetra that wants to do the same things in the community we want to do, all of a sudden, a program that we run with Symetra is featured in People magazine.”

Journey from Jersey and ‘Jerry McGuire’ to Seattle

What began with “Jerry Maguire” as her favorite childhood movie (“I realized I could be in sports without being an exceptional athlete”) led to registering for high school teacher and track coach Aaron Oldfield’s sports marketing class at Hopewell Valley Central (NJ). Bickford and Oldfield kept in touch when she went to the University of New Hampshire, where she aimed to work in an NCAA Division 1 athletic program and did exactly that while working with the school’s men’s hockey team.

She was a good enough soccer player to have NCAA Division III opportunities, but her dream career was working in sports. Oldfield connected her to a student’s father with connections, eventually leading to a role with a sports marketing agency in Chicago.

“I worked in and around the NHL for years with the agency in Chicago,” said Bickford. “But I never imagined in terms of this job being the first NHL team that I worked for and then it being an expansion team. Then on top of that, there’s everything we've been able to do over the last six-and-a-half years.”

That time span and the desks on Harrison Street feel like forever ago and snap-your-fingers just yesterday at the same time. More than just Bickford and this reporter are in awe of what has transpired for this particular Seattle pro sports franchise. Just ask any long-time or even short-term corporate partners or fans who rave about Common Thread nights or parents with kids in youth hockey and figure skating programs at the Iceplex.

“It's about the larger meaning,” said Bickford. “It's about getting involved with community. I think it's such a testament to this organization, even as we talk about sales strategies, the three biggest assets we have – the name of the arena, the name of the Iceplex and the jersey patch don't have a corporate name on them. It's Climate Pledge Arena. It's the Kraken Community Iceplex and it’s Muckleshoot. That doesn’t happen in any other market except Seattle.”