SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle Kraken forward John Hayden and the team’s blue-haired troll mascot had a close call with a brown bear during a promotional video shoot in Alaska.
Hayden and the mascot named Buoy were on a fly-fishing outing in Katmai National Park as part of a trip promoting youth hockey when the bear approached, video released by the team shows.
Knee-deep in a shallow river, they wore waders and other fly-fishing gear. Hayden had been fishing, but a guide quickly took the rod from him.
The bear charged toward the mascot, splashing water, but turned away before making contact as Hayden, Buoy and the film crew waded back to shore through a gentle current.
Brown bears commonly feast on salmon in the Brooks River in Katmai National Park, gobbling them as they leap upstream over Brooks Falls to spawn. The park, nearly 300 miles (485 km) southwest of Anchorage and inaccessible by road, is home to the annual “Fat Bear Week” contest celebrating the bears as they fatten up for the winter.
The NHL team said it didn’t intend to involve the bear in filming, but included it in a video posted to social media. Organizers had hired guides for safety.
“Bears are everywhere at Brooks Falls and, like, this is their territory,” said Kraken Partnership Marketing Director Melissa O’Brochta, who also recorded the encounter from shore. “They’re also super used to seeing humans. So I wasn’t scared.”
A troll might have been a different story.
“I want to blame it on Buoy,” Hayden said on the video afterward. “They were pretty interested in his look.”
The run-in happened on June 25 as part of an annual trip organized by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation in Anchorage, Alaska, with events that promote youth ice hockey. Alaska does not have its own NHL team; the closest teams are in Seattle and Vancouver, Canada.
