NHL Team Names Part 2

This is our second post on the origin of NHL Team Names.

         

The New Jersey Devils name comes from a Jersey legend from the Pine Barrens in the southern part of the state. A witch allegedly gave birth to a demon known as "Jersey Devil" in 1735, or that it was the cursed 13th child of Mother Leeds who was jinxed by gypsies. The Jersey Devil was alleged to be a half-man, half-beast that live in the Pinelands.

Across the Hudson River, we find two hockey teams. The New York Islanders were set to be called the Long Islanders, since Long Island was where they would compete. Original co-owner Roy Boe's wife suggested the name New York Islanders in the hope of winning over unhappy New York Ranger fans. Briefly, their logo depicted a fisherman (the Island being a big fishing location) but they returned to the original logo with the "Y" in NY in the shape of a hockey stick going through Long Island.

           

The Manhattan rival team is the New York Rangers. George Lewis "Tex" Rickard was the president of Madison Square Garden and was awarded an NHL franchise for the 1926–27 season. They would compete with the now-defunct New York Americans, who had begun play at the Garden the previous season. His new team was quickly nicknamed "Tex's Rangers" and the first team crest was a horse sketched in blue carrying a cowboy waving a hockey stick. It was changed to the now familiar RANGERS in diagonal.

The Philadelphia hockey franchise naming came down to two choices: Flyers or Quakers. Philadelphia's first general Manager, Bud Poile, had once ran a pro team in Edmonton called the Flyers, but the Quakers had been the city's first NHL team. It had a very brief life in 1930-31. The name references the heritage of the area's original settlers. But fans thought the old Quakers name had losing attached to it, they went with Philadelphia Flyers.

The early version of what would become the Coyotes was the December 1971 Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association (WHA). After the WHA had ceased operations, they were one of four franchises absorbed into the National Hockey League. The Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996 and were renamed the Phoenix Coyotes. The team name change came with a logo to reflect an animal well known in the southwest - a Kachina style coyote standing upright with a hockey stick and a face mask in Southwestern style. The team colors had a Southwestern style of forest green, brick red, sand, sienna, and purple.

The NHL took ownership of the Phoenix Coyotes franchise in 2009 after owner Jerry Moyes turned it over to the league after declaring bankruptcy. It took several years to find new owners who would not move the franchise out of Metro Phoenix. The NHL completed the sale of the Coyotes in August 2013, and the following summer the team changed its geographic name from "Phoenix" to "Arizona" and modified its logo to a simpler coyote head.