Color of Hockey: Making a Difference — and Huge Impact

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, as part of NHL.com's celebration of Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, he profiles Mari Horita, Seattle Kraken senior vice president, social impact & government relations, and executive director of One Roof Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the team and Climate Pledge Arena.

Mari Horita met with Tod Leiweke in the summer of 2018 looking to make a corporate connection and perhaps enlist support from the CEO of the then-unnamed Seattle NHL franchise for the local nonprofit arts organization she headed.

“They were in a makeshift office, maybe seven people there, no name, no arena, no nothing," Horita said. "Just Tod, a few people and a pooled idea. I obviously didn’t ask them for money because they didn’t exist yet. So we talked for about an hour … It was a great conversation, and I figured I’d never hear from them again.”

But Leiweke and Seattle Kraken officials called back a week later for further discussions that led to Horita being hired in 2018 and becoming the team’s senior vice president of social impact and government relations and executive director of the One Roof Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the team and Climate Pledge Arena.

Horita leads the development and implementation of social impact, community engagement, philanthropic visions and strategies for the Kraken and the arena. Her move from president and CEO of Seattle’s ArtsFund to the Kraken was the latest in a career that has crossed the worlds of nonprofits and real estate law, all bound by a common thread: To help make Seattle and beyond more inclusive and welcoming for all.

“Tod’s vision was to not only bring the hockey team and the Stanley Cup back to Seattle (the Seattle Metropolitans won the Cup in 1917) and build a state-of-the-art arena," she said, "but to really leverage this enterprise for good and to write our own Pacific Northwest hockey culture that would include everyone, acknowledging that hockey has not been the most inclusive, representative and, arguably, welcoming sport for everyone.

"I was really drawn to this by the vision of what could be accomplished through the sport of hockey.”

The sport was new territory for Horita when she joined the Kraken, having gone to see Seattle of the Western Hockey League once when her daughter was younger.

“Over the last 6 1/2 years," she said, "I have obviously become a huge fan of the sport and the team and developed a deep respect for the athletes and the rigor and the discipline and the game.”

Leiweke said Horita, who has a law degree from the University of Washington School of Law and a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership/management from Seattle University, was a natural fit for the Kraken.

“Mari achieved her law degree and then got a master’s degree in public service," Leiweke said, "and that is what she has dedicated her career to and how she’s made such a big difference in our community. She has used the platform of Climate Pledge Arena and the Seattle Kraken to positively impact our community. We are fortunate to have her leadership.”

Horita takes pride in Kraken accomplishments that include the installation of water filling stations and the gift of reusable bottles at Seattle’s Lowell Elementary School, where students lacked access to clean drinking water, through a One Roof Foundation initiative in conjunction with Climate Pledge Arena and singer-songwriter Billie Eilish.

The foundation also helped get more kids involved in hockey by providing financial assistance to families for youth hockey programming at the Kraken Community Iceplex, the team’s practice facility, and publishing the application forms in English, Spanish, Chinese, Somali, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

The team also celebrated the legacy of the late Larry Kwong, who became the first player of Asian descent in NHL history when he skated one shift for the New York Rangers at the Montreal Canadiens on March 13, 1948, as part of the Kraken’s Lunar New Year Night game against the Anaheim Ducks on Jan. 28.

Alaska Airlines, a Kraken partner, flew in Kwong’s daughter and two granddaughters, who watched the swift-skating forward who was nicknamed “The China Clipper” and “King Kwong” honored in a video on Climate Pledge Arena’s giant scoreboard to a standing ovation from fans.

Kwong was named the night’s “Hero of the Deep,” and a $32,000 donation was made by the Bonderman family of Kraken majority owner Samantha Holloway to two non-profit organizations -- the Friends of Little Saigon and the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation Development Authority.

The Kwong tribute was planned after Horita received an email from Chad Soon, a Kwong friend who co-authored “The Longest Shot: How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey” with George Chiang, inquiring whether the Kraken could honor Kwong in some way.

“I took that across to our departmental group that gets together to talk about theme nights," Horita said, "as well as our corporate partnership team, our in-game team and our social impact team. What I love about this organization is everyone was, like, ‘Yeah, let’s figure this out.”

Soon said Horita took a keen interest in the evening’s events.

“Every little detail mattered to her,” Soon said. “It was something that she and the Kraken embraced, and they were doing it because they felt it was right to do and to welcome and include people of diverse backgrounds into the hockey community there. It was just a feeling of warmth and welcome.”

Horita said she brings a passion and awareness to her job as a third generation Japanese American. Her grandparents immigrated to the West Coast from Japan and her parents were born in the United States.

The family of her mother, Lillian, were among the 13,000 Japanese Americans who were relocated and incarcerated at the Minidoka War Relocation Center, in Jerome County, Idaho, during World War II. More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in 10 camps built mostly in remote sections of the United States.

Horita visited the facility, now the Minidoka National Historic Site, with her mother in 2019.

“She hadn't been back since she was incarcerated,” Horita said. “There's only one barrack but, they tour you through this and you get a sense of what it was like. It's a little bit staged at this point, but it's still so bleak. And then you hear the history of how people were living. They were living in … barracks with six families. They didn't have running water. They were surrounded by barbed wired armed guards and watch towers.”

Horita said knowing her family’s history and seeing Minidoka “had a huge impact on who I am and what I do.”

“I was a CEO of an arts nonprofit and before that I was a corporate real estate lawyer, so my whole career has been quite a zigzag," she said, "and in many ways, they are distinct and very different.

“But there's also a through line, at least for me, in that all of these different industries, the different sectors, play, I believe, a key role in how well our society functions, how strong our community is, and the quality of life in the region.”