Firebirds Hockey Turns Palm Springs into a Sports Town
Player John Hayden wears his Kraken connection on his sleeve, as do all the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
It's two hours before puck drop at a Coachella Valley Firebirds game and the Palm Springs In-and-Out Burger is bumping. Across the fast-food restaurant, patrons in Firebirds gear greet each other and order burgers animal style. I see an actual high five between fans across the tops of the white and red booths.
You wouldn't know from the fan energy here, but the Firebirds team is so new that it makes the Kraken look like the New York Yankees. Turns out it didn't take long for the Firebirds to make this piece of desert into a sports oasis.
It's not that Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley weren't known for any sports before this. There's the summer league baseball and world-class tennis facilities at Indian Wells, not to mention the unofficial competitive sport of pulling off a weird hipster hat at the Coachella music fest. But when the Coachella Valley Firebirds came into town last year, the area finally had a big-time team. Best known for midcentury architecture and celebrity sightings, Palm Springs has a new facet to its identity: sports town.
Acrisure Arena seats just over 10,000 fans, and the Firebirds have already seen sellouts.
As part of the American Hockey League, the Firebirds are basically the Seattle Kraken's minor league team—a developmental squad where new draftees and injured NHL players can get ice time before suiting up as Kraken. They're like the Tacoma Rainiers of the Kraken, only located in the desert of south central California.
Inside the brand-new Acrisure Arena, built last year for this purpose, fans stream in wearing an array of Firebirds merch. There are colorful plastic necklaces with Firebird medallions and shirts with the logo reimagined into a Day of the Dead pastiche. Unlike most hockey arenas, this one has an outdoor plaza with many of the food vendors, and it can be too warm to wear all one's hockey swag in the warm walk from the parking lot.
Firebirds fans sneak in a Kraken logo.
But how does it compare to a Kraken game? From a seat a few rows behind the bench—which costs about a quarter of what it would in Climate Pledge Arena—the action is fast. A keen-eyed hockey fan can spot a few more flubs than you'd see in the big leagues, a few more missed shots—though the team nearly nabbed the AHL championship in its very first season. The players are younger; some of the faces on the bench look barely out of high school (because they are).
The energy in the arena, however, almost matches Kraken game levels, or at least proportionate to its capacity (about 60 percent of CPA). Kids reach down to give high fives to players as they exit each period, and one young woman sits front row in a shirt with the inscrutable message "The Puck You Girl." Like Buoy, the mascot bangs a big drum to rouse the crowd.
"It exceeded our expectations," says Gina Rotolo, vice president of marketing for the Firebirds, of the instant fanbase in the Coachella Valley. "It was so organically embraced by fans of all ages and all experience." The Firebirds have already sold out games, and Rotolo says the 5,800 season ticket holders, the most in the AHL, rival some NHL teams in number.
Though the arena is technically in Palm Desert, the team is meant to represent nine different communities of the valley, from ritzy Palm Springs to less touristy Indio. "This community truly bonded and blended together and shared this experience, the highs and some of the lows," she says—even though it's mostly highs so far.
Goaltender Joey Daccord was a Firebirds star before he was a Kraken MVP.
As a Kraken fan, the appeal of the Firebirds goes beyond the sunny locale. It is, of course, the chance to see future Kraken stars on the launchpad. Last year, for example, Firebirds cheered their goalie Joey Daccord through the inaugural season; this year he leveled up to the Kraken to headline a winning streak and became MVP of the Winter Classic.
Still, the Firebirds aren't quite the Kraken on the cheap. An IPA still rings up north of $18, and merch is cute but almost as expensive as major league gear. And anyone used to strolling, scootering, or monorailing to CPA would be taken aback by the general lack of public transportation. Fans mostly drive to Acrisure, and our $35 parking spot was a full quarter mile from the arena doors.
Among all the winged logos and the fuzzy bird mascot, a few Kraken hats and flags are visible in the Firebird crowd too; it's a small, tangible link to Seattle. The instant affection feels familiar, the kind of energy that can only come from a brand-new entity. Someday the Kraken and the Firebirds will lecture young'uns about tradition; for now it is about hockey at its youngest and hungriest, and a fandom excited to be the first.
