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          Seattle hockey bar hoping to survive COVID-19 pandemic to welcome the Kraken to town

          Courtesy of Tim Pipes
          • Greg WyshynskiDec 3, 2020, 09:25 AM ET
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              Greg Wyshynski is ESPN's senior NHL writer.
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          The Angry Beaver has endured a lot. Perhaps that's why it's so angry.

          Billed as Seattle's only hockey bar, the Angry Beaver has been operating in the Greenwood neighborhood since 2012. On busy nights, it looks like a hockey quilt: different fans in different jerseys, clustered together, watching their NHL teams, never having to ask for the games to be put on the TVs because they'd already be on when they walked into the Beaver.

          It's a bar that would open at 6 a.m. for World Juniors, and stayed open past 2 a.m. when Canada won Olympic gold in Sochi. It's a memorabilia-packed, puck Mecca owner Tim Pipes calls "a beautiful bar that can smell like a jock strap by the end of the playoffs."

          It also exploded once. Then it was robbed, right down to the last bottle. That was before the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close recently, throwing its future into question less than a year before this hockey bar was finally going to have an NHL team to call its own with the arrival of the Seattle Kraken.

          "It's part of the Seattle hockey grassroots community," said John Barr, an Angry Beaver patron who founded the NHL To Seattle advocacy group. "To stick it out through the lockout and the explosion and now a pandemic, and to be so close and then not to make it ... that would be devastating."

          COVID-19 has taken so much from all of us. There's only so much we can give in the hopes of preventing more losses. Hockey fans are trying to help the Angry Beaver survive until the Kraken arrive next October. But its owner, like so many other small business owners in 2020, wonders if it can make it until then.

          Pipes said he's "sleeping like garbage" these days, feeling constant anxiety and restlessness since the Beaver closed its doors about two weeks ago. The bar is his life. He's not married, has no kids. His companion is a rescue mutt named Luna, whom he'll take for a walk around midnight. When he gets back an hour later, there's manic energy to do projects around the house, such as raking leaves in the middle of the night. Then it's "happy time," as he'll pour some tequila and listen to Beatles albums. He'll fall asleep around 4 or 5 a.m. for what amounts to a nap. Rinse and repeat.

          "It's the worst Groundhog's Day. This second round of this lockdown has kicked my a--," he told ESPN.

          Pipes was born in Winnipeg and grew up in Toronto. He went to school in Boston for music, and then ventured out to Seattle in 1991 to play bass in its rock scene, riding a wave that he admits had already crested. His band, Bananafish, opened for acts such as Heart and Queensrÿche. Eventually, Pipes entered the IT field, made some money -- and made even more of it as an investor in Apple before the boom.

          About 18 years ago, he left Seattle for one year to move back to Toronto. While there, he reconnected with hockey culture, and marveled at the community of fans that would cluster in Toronto bars to watch games.

          As an American hockey fan, I can't tell you how many Canadians I've met who are baffled that our bars don't just have a hockey game on when you walk in. It's such a natural occurrence for them back home. They don't know the non-Canadian indignity of having to ask for the game to be shown; having the bartender fecklessly cycle through the channel guide, having absolutely no idea what network has the hockey game; and then being informed that, actually, the hockey game won't be shown, because someone requested to watch a regular-season baseball game in mid-April.

          It's like explaining to an Irishman that some bars actually don't serve Guinness.

          There are other establishments in Seattle that show hockey games, but the Angry Beaver has been the only hockey bar with the on-demand package of NHL games, showing multiple ones every night rather than just the national broadcasts. With the sound on! A true rarity for American bars showing hockey.

          Pipes took over the bar in 2012, joining a conga line of owners that tracks back to 1937, when it was called Central Tavern. It has undergone a half-dozen name changes since then -- including the curious "Yo Babes" in the 1970s -- and was one of 500 or so pubs called "The Pig and Whistle" when Pipes bought it and rechristened it "The Angry Beaver." His vision: making it into Seattle's premier Canadian bar. Poutine would be on the menu. Hockey would be on TV.

          Well, eventually it would be.

          The Angry Beaver actually poured its first beverage during the NHL lockout of 2012.

          "I opened a hockey bar, and for three months, there's no god damn hockey on," Pipes recalled.

          That was actually a blessing, because it gave Pipes three months to learn, you know, how to actually run a bar. When the NHL season started, the Angry Beaver was ready for the fans to arrive. Which they did, in droves.

          "It's kind of the central meeting place for hockey fans," said Barr. "Early on, there were a lot of doubters that didn't believe that hockey would work in this town. And it was hard, because we couldn't connect to other hockey fans, because we didn't know who each other were. All of a sudden, the Angry Beaver opens, and it's filled with hockey fans that you don't know. It was incredible to see 'our people' and connect."

          The Angry Beaver's popularity exploded.

          And then, unfortunately, so did the bar.

          On March 16, 2016, Pipes was in the bar with the bartender, his ex-wife and one patron. They watched some firefighters amass across the street. It was past midnight, and they were having a drink. Pipes said he heard a "sucking sound," turned his head to the left and there was "a 50-foot wide fireball" coming at him. A split-second later was the explosion, from the gas leak the firefighters were seeking. It destroyed three businesses and injured nine firefighters.

          Pipes screamed so loudly that he blew out his voice, urging everyone to run for the back door. They were safe. The bar was not: The ceiling came down, the interior was wrecked. "It was a f---ing nightmare," he recalled.

          Then, it got worse. A month later, a van pulled up to the back of the building. The alarm for the bar was off due to the high volume of workers coming in and out to rebuild after the explosion. Thieves entered The Angry Beaver and stole jerseys and memorabilia, some of it signed. They took all the liquor and everything in the walk-in cooler that they could. One of them grabbed a box of beer, realized it was non-alcoholic, and smashed it on the ground on the way out.

          "It was enough to go through the explosion. The robbery broke me," Pipes said.

          The bar reopened on July 22, 2016. For the next few years, Pipes went through persona strife -- back surgeries, the death of his mother, a divorce -- while the Angry Beaver kept building back and evolving. More jerseys went up on the walls. People would bring Pipes items from their memorabilia collections -- though he doesn't have it authenticated, he believes he has a baseball signed by Hall of Famers Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and Brad Park.

          Most importantly, more fans found their tribes.

          "Who's gonna come in here and root for the Columbus Blue Jackets in Seattle? Well, I'll be damned if a hundred people don't show up. When the Blackhawks won their Cups, you'd think our bar was in Chicago, we had so many jerseys standing outside after the game," Pipes said.

          Hockey fandom in Seattle was thriving, but it was about to get a nitro boost. After years of chasing a franchise, with stops and starts due to a variety of obstacles, it appeared the city was going to get an NHL expansion team.

          The Kraken's leadership have crossed the doorstep of the Angry Beaver, from Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke to team CEO Tod Leiweke to part-owner Jerry Bruckheimer. They were at the bar the night before their ticket drive, in which the team acquired 10,000 deposits in 12 minutes. Tod Leiweke even left a message for Pipes to "get ready" the night before the Seattle group traveled to the NHL board of governors meeting in Georgia for the bid's approval.

          The Angry Beaver seemed primed to grow along with the hype for the Kraken in 2020. But after a lockout, an explosion and grand larceny, the bar took its biggest hit from COVID-19.

          On March 15, the order came from Gov. Jay Inslee to shutter businesses that had public gatherings. Pipes said his staff soon abandoned him, and he turned to an organization called Seattle Restaurant Support to hire workers to thoroughly clean the bar and kitchen. By May, restaurants were allowed to open for takeout food; though Pipes hates the word "pivot," that's what the Angry Beaver did, packing up burgers and poutine for patrons to take away.

          "That tapered off after about two weeks. Initially, everyone was like, 'Let's support the Beaver.' Then there's this burnout. It's like volunteering, I guess: You go and do it, and it feels fulfilling for your soul, and then you do it two more times and you burn out and don't do it anymore," he said.

          There was another surge when the bar reopened for patrons during the 2020 NHL postseason, which was held this past summer inside two Canadian "bubbles," in Toronto and Edmonton. But when the hockey was over, so was the surge: Pipes said his revenues were down 90% having already been down 60% during the NHL season. He was pulling in $10,000 per month. Pipes said it costs about $35,000 per month to run the bar, including rent, payroll and other costs. That includes about nine staffers.

          Pipes applied for and received a Small Business Administration loan of $150,000 during the summer -- at 4% interest for 30 years, and it doesn't have to be paid back if the business folds. But he has burned through $100,000 of it. When the state went back into a lockdown for indoor dining on Nov. 18, Pipes shuttered The Angry Beaver.

          When the bar exploded and was robbed, a funny thing happened: The Angry Beaver got a publicity boost from the coverage, exposing new audiences to the existence of a hockey bar in Seattle. Pipes said it has happened again as the Beaver has struggled to stay open during the pandemic, as fans of the bar and those who want to see a hockey establishment thrive have contributed money to its survival.

          The "Save The Angry Beaver" GoFundMe page has raised close to $16,000. It was started by Pipes' friend and former bandmate Chris Karges.

          "He posted something, and he sounded really down," Karges told ESPN. "Saying he was a few months away from cashing in his chips and calling it quits. I read it, said, 'What the hell,' and created a GoFundMe page."

          The target is $50,000, a combination of Karges' back-of-the-napkin rent projection for the Beaver, and his having started at $100,000 and then slicing it in half when he figured that was too high.

          For a while, his was one of the only donations. But the fund drive got a boost when it was promoted by Phinneywood, a community news site. As fan support rolls in, Karges is hoping for an additional boost from the new local team.

          "The Kraken have kind of gone radio silent, but they've got their hands full. Tim doesn't hold anything against them. He's had some conversations, but they weren't real helpful. If you're spending a billion and a half to start a team, you might be able to send a couple of bucks his way. We'll see," said Karges.

          Pipes appreciates the outreach from patrons and hockey fans on the GoFundMe. "I'm truly grateful for every single damn penny. I truly am. And for what people have said about my bar," he said.

          It's all about survival now. The man behind the Angry Beaver hopes to hang on until next October when the Kraken hit the ice, and hockey fans in Seattle start multiplying like amoeba. But he's not sure if it can.

          "I stuck my boots in the sand with hockey. I claimed my stake without knowing there was going to be a professional team coming. It was a passion play," he said, before a deep sigh. "I don't know, dude. I've got a quarter of a million dollars invested into that place, and I haven't made anything back on it. I'm down to about $35,000 from all the funding, loans and grants. It's too big of a loss for me to just walk away. I can't. I had an honest conversation the other day with my accountant about when the money runs out, and he said, 'You declare bankruptcy.'"

          Maybe there's a bar like the Angry Beaver in your town. A place where your tribe of fans cluster.

          Maybe it was Summers in Arlington, Va., where soccer fans gathered at off-peak hours to watch international leagues on satellite dishes in pre-streaming days. Maybe it was Foley's in New York City, where Pittsburgh Penguins fans would crowd the bar on some nights and St. Louis Cardinals fans would do so on others. I spilled more than a few beverages in both of those establishments before they shuttered due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.

          There was no saving them. There might be no saving the Angry Beaver, just like there was no saving countless other establishments the pandemic economy has permanently closed. But as the debut of Seattle's hockey team finally arrives next fall, its hockey fans are rallying to ensure that the hockey bar they love will be there to celebrate it.

          It has to be, after all it has endured.

          "It's like training for a marathon, getting to Mile 26 and then not being able to complete it," said Barr. "He's been through so much. It would be a real travesty."

          Three things about Gary Bettman

          1. I've covered Gary Bettman through multiple work stoppages. I've seen him go to the mattresses over labor issues, with inflammatory and combative rhetoric. So after hearing him speak at the Sports Business Journal's "Dealmakers in Sport" panel this week regarding the suddenly contentious talks with the players, allow me a moment of complete speculation:

          I don't think his heart's into this one, folks.

          "We've been absolutely unequivocal with the players that we are not trying to renegotiate," he said.

          I think he and the NHL had a long negotiation with the players that both sides figured was completed during the summer, when they signed their memorandum of understanding for a new collective bargaining agreement. It was a deal that plotted a path forward for the owners during the COVID-19 pandemic and into its economic aftermath. It continued a salary-cap system that they were happy with, which has kept the salaries of star players restrained while those in other sports have exploded.

          But I think there are about five to seven owners who look at this season and would rather not play without fans. I know some of them are prominent and influential, and I think Bettman has to go and get something else from the players to make it worth their trouble -- even if it's just to placate them with a morsel of deferred salary.

          I think Bettman has wanted to start on Jan. 1 because with the CBA settled, there was no reason not to start on Jan. 1. The deal was signed, and signed during the pandemic. I don't think he wants to reopen it. But his owners do. And he serves at their pleasure.

          2. This was from Kevin McGran's piece from the Toronto Star on Monday:

          This is something that you read about NHL owners, can't quite believe it's true, mull it over and realize that, yes, it's entirely possible this is true. And then smack your forehead, repeatedly, as there are a group of people who will take action on the finest of fine print on contracts without reading the summary of the one they signed off on last summer.

          3. Finally, kudos to Liz Claman of Fox Business Channel for asking Bettman the big question at the end: When are you going to retire?

          "I love what I do, and as long as I love what I do and I have the energy to do it -- I don't feel any less energetic than I did 30 years ago -- we'll keep doing it, as long as the owners will have me," he said, echoing comments he made in January.

          Honestly, Bettman could have ridden off into the sunset after this past summer. The NHL was lauded for its return to play. The new CBA got done. The cooperation with the players was never better in achieving all of it. I wonder what level of personal obligation he has to seeing the NHL through the pandemic years before handing it off to the next person?

          Winners and losers of the week

          Winner: Tim Tebow

          One of hockey's newest owners is ... Tim Tebow? The former NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner, ESPN analyst and burgeoning baseball player is now a part-owner of the Jacksonville Icemen, the ECHL affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets.

          Loser: NHL transactions

          While the NBA continues to make blockbuster trades, the NHL's offseason transactions have slowed to "a snail in molasses" pace. "At this point, it doesn't make sense to do something until we know what things look like," an agent told The Athletic's Thomas Drance. "If we wanted to have signed already, we could've done that. Then again, those teams we could've signed with haven't done anything else yet either. It's like a very long engagement, or like there's 31 people at the dance, but there's just no dance partners."

          Winner: Jasper Weatherby and Jacob Bernard-Docker

          It's not so much that these North Dakota players took a knee during the anthem to protest racial injustice at their team's opener on Wednesday. It's that they're trying to get their own house in order. According to the Grand Forks Herald, Weatherby and Bernard-Docker are both members of the UND student-athlete inclusion and diversity group. Weatherby is also the National Collegiate Hockey Conference's player rep in a college hockey diversity group, and "independently sent a list of recommendations to campus officials on ways they could make campus a more inclusive place."

          Loser: Sports media radar

          The North Dakota students' protest became a national story. When players on the University of New Hampshire women's hockey team did it two weeks ago, it didn't make nearly the same kind of impression. It should have.

          Winner: Riveters

          The new sweaters for the Metropolitan Riveters of the NWHL are better than, what, 70% of NHL jerseys?

          Loser: Kraken

          The NHL's Seattle franchise isn't commenting on how "Release the Kraken" has been co-opted by those seeking to overturn the U.S. election results. Advised one branding expert, to the Seattle Times: "People will connect it themselves. But say upfront: 'This is what we believe as the Kraken.' So, then they can say, 'This is what we mean when we say 'Release the Kraken.' It can be a small campaign of a couple of weeks. You say, 'Here's our value. Here's our brand value. This is what we value in the Seattle community. This is what we're driven by.'"

          Winner: Calling out misogyny

          Evander Kane and Ryan Reaves have no love lost, and the two traded words (again) over Twitter after Kane challenged celebrity boxer and former child star Jake Paul to a match. Kane dismissed Reaves and his brother Jordan, a CFL player, by calling them the "Reaves sisters." He was called on it by hockey fans and issued an apology: "I used a term that was sexist in a earlier tweet. My intention wasn't for it to come across that way at all. I would like to apologize for using that term and to anyone who was offended by it." He's subsequently deleted the taunts and the apology.

          Loser: Calling out Logan Paul

          Kane called out Jake Paul, which caused Jake's brother Logan Paul to call out Kane, which caused Kane to call out Logan Paul, which led to Logan Paul saying he'd fight Kane, which won't happen due to Kane's standard player contract that undoubtedly forbids such things, which ... you know what, please start the season.

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