Saturday at 6:05 p.m., the lights inside Angel of the Winds Arena will dim just long enough for a banner to rise into the rafters for the first time in franchise history. The Everett Silvertips open their 2026-27 season against the Portland Winterhawks, and before the puck drops, the team will hold a pre-game ceremony to hang the Ed Chynoweth Cup championship banner it earned this past May.
That part of the story has been told everywhere this week. What hasn't been said as clearly is what's changed on the ground since the last time this team opened a season at home. For more than twenty years, getting dinner before a Silvertips game meant one stretch of Hewitt Avenue. This is the first season where it means choosing between two.
Twenty-Three Seasons, Three Tries
The Silvertips joined the Western Hockey League as an expansion franchise for the 2003-04 season and lost in the finals that same year. They got back to the championship series once more, in 2017-18, and lost again. This past May, in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, they finally closed it out, beating the Raiders 7-2 in Game 5 to win their first Ed Chynoweth Cup. It was the third time in club history the team played for a WHL title and the first time it won one.
Forward Julius Miettinen was named the 2026 WHL Playoffs MVP after leading all skaters in postseason scoring. Defenseman Landon DuPont, who filled in on the blue line after captain Tarin Smith went down with an injury, put it simply after the final buzzer: "It's unreal, it doesn't feel real." Two weeks later, Everett carried that momentum to Kelowna for its first-ever Memorial Cup appearance, reaching the tournament final before losing to the Kitchener Rangers 6-2.
None of that history gets a ceremony until this Saturday. That's what makes this particular home opener heavier than the usual season-launch game, and it's why the crowd on Hewitt Avenue beforehand is expected to run thicker than a typical September Saturday.
Two Blocks That Used to Be One
The pre-game routine on Hewitt Avenue is almost as old as the arena itself. On the night the building first opened its doors in 2003, downtown filled up with fans looking for parking, food, and a seat at the bar before the first puck ever dropped there. That pattern held for two decades. Brooklyn Brothers Pizza, known for its by-the-slice, wood-fired thin crust, and The Independent Beer Bar, a local craft beer stop just steps from the arena entrance, have become the default stops for fans walking in from the surrounding blocks.
That routine isn't going anywhere this season. But it's no longer the only option.
The New Street Down at the Marina
A mile or so downhill from Hewitt Avenue, the Port of Everett has spent the past year filling out Restaurant Row, its cluster of waterfront dining spots at Waterfront Place. Rustic Cork Wine Bar and The Net Shed Fresh Fish Market & Kitchen both opened in December 2025. Tapped Public House followed in March 2026, bringing what the Port describes as the largest open-air rooftop deck on the waterfront in Snohomish County. Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina, a family-run Mexican restaurant with locations in Woodinville and Kent, cut the ribbon on its Everett spot in late June 2026.
By the time puck drop arrives Saturday, all four have been open and running for months. That's the part worth sitting with: this is the first Silvertips season where fans can choose between the original Hewitt Avenue corridor that grew up around the arena and a fully built-out second dining district down at the marina, one that didn't exist in anything like its current form as recently as last year's home opener.
| Hewitt Avenue (Arena Side) | Restaurant Row (Waterfront Place) | |
|---|---|---|
| Distance from arena | Walking distance | Short drive downhill toward the water |
| Vibe | Pre-game, arena-adjacent, built around foot traffic | Marina views, sit-down dining, built for lingering |
| Anchor spots | Brooklyn Brothers Pizza, The Independent Beer Bar | Tapped Public House, Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina, The Net Shed |
| Best for | Grabbing a slice or a beer on the way in | Making the meal itself the destination |
The economic ripple from the arena has been documented for years now. A 2021 look at the venue's impact found that Angel of the Winds Arena helped generate $29.2 million in revenue for Snohomish County businesses that year, supporting 240 jobs. In a retrospective on the arena's history published earlier this year, one local voice close to that growth put it plainly: the building "brought in a lot more restaurants, nightlife, pedestrian foot traffic that wasn't quite here before." Restaurant Row is the newest chapter of that same story, just a few blocks farther from center ice than anyone expected it to reach.
What Locals Already Know, and What First-Timers Should
If you've been to a handful of games, the between-periods rhythms are familiar: the t-shirt gun, the in-arena raffle, and chuck-a-puck, where fans pay to throw a numbered puck at a row of tires set up at center ice during a break in play. Mascot Lincoln, the team's grizzly bear namesake, still tears around the ice on an ATV to rile up the crowd, and the arena's signature train horn still sounds off after every Everett goal.
A few things worth knowing before Saturday:
- Doors typically open about an hour before puck drop, so plan pre-game food accordingly if you want to be in your seat for warmups.
- If you arrive late or step out mid-period, arena etiquette is to wait at the top of the aisle for a stoppage in play before heading to your seat.
- Nearby parking options include the Snohomish County Parking Garage on Rockefeller Avenue, the Republic Parking surface lot on Hewitt, and the Everpark Garage on Hoyt Avenue, all within a few blocks of the main entrance.
The Rest of the Season Worth Circling Now
Saturday isn't the only date worth putting on the calendar. The Silvertips have already released their 2026-27 promotional schedule, and it includes the usual mix of fan traditions and new additions. Teddy Bear Toss and the Great Small Dog Race series are both back, along with the Great Paper Airplane Toss. New this year is Union Solidarity Night, presented by the Snohomish & Island County Labor Council, and Navy Night, presented by North Sound Stevedoring. Friday games keep their Hockey Happy Hour ticket-and-drink packages, and the standard weekly schedule holds steady: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday games start at 7:05 p.m., Saturdays at 6:05 p.m., and Sunday games at 4:05 p.m.
For a city that didn't have a hockey team, or much of a downtown restaurant scene, before 2003, that's a lot of steady rhythm built on top of what used to be two empty city blocks. This Saturday just happens to be the night both the team's history and its neighborhood's growth get marked at the same time, one with a banner going up inside the arena, the other with a second full dining district lit up a few blocks away.
Whichever side of town you end up on before puck drop, that's the kind of local detail that doesn't show up on a schedule. It's the sort of thing you notice only after you've lived here a while, which is exactly the case for Julie Ochoa, who works with buyers and sellers across Everett and the rest of Snohomish County. If a conversation about the neighborhood ever turns into a conversation about a move, Let's Connect.
