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.”