Alaska’s Katmai National Park has a charming livestream that’s a treat to tune into. The rushing water is soothing, you get to see the salmon making their signature upstream leaps, and you’ll see bears depending on the time. (I was staring at one for a while last night that I thought was a rock until the camera zoomed in and the big galumph started moving, rolling onto its back like my dog asking for a belly rub.) Or you might catch a glimpse of an invasive species: the National Hockey League’s own Seattle Kraken, who make a yearly migration up from their native Washington to the 49th state. Last week, the hockey team visited Katmai for a little fly fishing, with even their mascot Buoy the sea troll in tow. Only the fuzzy costume (yes, Buoy donned fly fishing gear over his mascot uniform) sparked some curiosity from a grizzly bear: the bear full-on charged at the strange, blue-haired troll encroaching on his turf! Luckily, no creatures were harmed. And the team captured excellent video of the near-miss.
Kraken center John Hayden talked through the close encounter in the video, saying, “While we were fishing, we had a pretty close call with a couple [of] bears.”
The footage then cut to a shot of Hayden fishing in a stream as the camera panned to the tree cover behind him and showed a brown grizzly bear making its way out of the woods and into the stream.
“We got a bear,” he told the camera, as another crew member said, “Oh, I got to break you off now. Hey Sam, we got a bear, we’ve got to move down.”
Hayden could be seen handing over his fly fishing pole to a crew member as the pair and filming crew began making their way downstream. However, it appeared that the bear wanted to follow them, as he could be seen dipping into the stream and heading in their direction.
At one point, the bear could be seen spotting Buoy the sea troll, who was also fly fishing with the team. The animal let out a roar and then could be seen charging toward the mascot as he hurried to move away.
Luckily, the grizzly bear stopped a few feet away from Buoy in the water. Another angle shot of the bear charging at the Kraken players and filming crew near the end of the video showed just how close the bear got to the team before they got away.
Hayden said in the video that they “got out of it okay,” but it was quite a “close call.” He also noted that the bear likely went after the mascot as it was “pretty interested in his whole look.”
“That last little sprint, I was worried for you Buoy,” a crew member told the mascot, who could be seen shaking his head before the video ended.”
“TROLL NARROWLY ESCAPES BEAR ENCOUNTER,” the team captioned the video. They added, “*no trolls or bears were hurt in the making, always respect wildlife in their natural habitat.”
In response to the video on X, one person noted that they had a similar close call with a “bull moose” while hiking on the side of a mountain. The person noted that despite getting “chased” by the animal they did not get “hurt.”
Another person joked that the bear may have thought Buoy was a friend, writing, “If not friend, why friend shaped?”
The team had been traveling across Alaska for their annual community engagement partnership trip with the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, according to UPI. The trip also included a “Kraken Week” where the team got to work with the Anchorage Hockey Academy’s youth hockey camp, per the outlet.
Yikes!! Thank goodness all critters came out safe and unharmed! Naturally, I have questions. For one, why does a team named “Kraken” have a troll for a mascot? That just seems like Mascot & Branding 101. Plus the kraken is such an iconic, evocative image — why wouldn’t you want to give that the puppet character treatment?! It just doesn’t make sense. Is John Oliver available for one more mascot rebrand? Moving along to my next issue: why does the Seattle team do an annual trip across Alaska, instead of, I don’t know, say their home state of Washington? Is that weird, or would it make total sense if I followed hockey more closely? (i.e., at all.) And lastly, bringing the mascot costume along for the ride. While I admire the dedication, why is Buoy out on the water fly fishing?! And what’s it like traveling through airport security with that thing? I realize he wasn’t wearing it on the flight (or was he?!), but I bet it still raised eyebrows, as hairy as the ones adorning the mascot himself. So many questions…
