NHL Team Names Part 4

In this fourth and final installment, we conclude our look at hockey team names.

Colorado fans were given eight names to choose from and Avalanche was the most popular. An avalanche is a frighteningly powerful act of nature that occurs in Colorado's mountains and their logo features a Rocky mountain-like "A" and an avalanche on a puck whips around the "A."

The Dallas Stars of Texas, honors the "Lone Star state." However, when the team was in Minnesota, their fans had chosen the Minnesota state motto "Etoile du Nord" (Star of the North).

The Detroit Red Wings name was the choice of then team president James Norris. He picked it because he had played on the Montreal Winged Wheelers and their wheel logo was a good fit for Detroit which is also known as the Motor City for its automotive production.

Edmonton Oilers - The management held a contest and chose Oilers, reflecting the importance of the oil industry in the area. They kept the name when it moved from the World Hockey Association (WHA) to the National Hockey League.

Florida Panthers - H. Wayne Huizenaga wanted to draw attention to the Panther, an endangered native wildcat of Florida.

         

Hartford Whalers - When originally in the WHA, club was named New England Whalers for two reasons: (1) New England, particularly Massachusetts, seaport towns are connected to whaling; (2) the name had WHA in it (WHAlers). Name later changed to Hartford Whalers. The original logo featured a whaling harpoon and the newer version features a stylized "H" with a whale's fluke.

         

Los Angeles Kings - Original owner, the late Jack Kent Cooke, named the team himself. The original colors were purple and gold with a logo of royal crown. The team colors became black, silver and white the same year Wayne Gretzky joined the team (1988-89). The current version features the letters "LA" and a silver crown.

Montreal Canadiens - Representing the nationality of the players on the team. Originally, the team had only French Canadian players.

And team #31 in the NHL will be in Seattle.

The nhlseattle.com team name and identity have not been decided as of this writing. Fans have been asked to help select the team name by sharing ideas using the hashtag #NHLSeattle or #ReturnToHockey.

NHL Team Names Part 3

Continuing our posts on the many NHL teams and their name origins.

The name Ottawa Senators honors the old Ottawa Senators hockey team named for Canada's capital that won 6 Stanley Cups and was also the nickname for a 1901 amateur team. Their logo features an ancient Roman senator.

The Washington Capitals of Washington, D.C. use the capital of the U.S. as their name and home.

The Pittsburgh Penguins picked up their name in a contest. Penguins at least partially may have been picked for the animals association with ice and snow and because of the PENguin and PENnsylvania connection.

The Quebec Nordiques were named when they were in the WHA because they were the northernmost team in pro hockey at the time.

The St. Louis Blues owe their name to owner Sid Salamon, Jr. who took it from a famous song with that name by W.C. Handy. Their logo features a musical note.

Frequency and geography explain two team names. The San Jose Sharks is another contest selection but sharks - seven varieties of them - frequent the nearby Pacific Ocean and one part of Bay Area is known as Red Triangle due to its shark population.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are based in a place that is considered to be the lightning capital of the world.

         

The Toronto Maple Leafs were originally known as the Arenas, then renamed St. Patricks. Several factors that influenced the naming include an old Toronto team called the East Maple Leaves, but when Conn Smythe bought the Toronto St. Patricks, he renamed the team after the Maple Leaf Regiment of the First World War. But clearly, the maple leaf on the Canadian flag has to be a factor.

Another Canadian team, the Vancouver Canucks, took their name from the Canadian folk hero Johnny Canuck who was was a great logger, as well as being a skater and hockey player in his spare time. Their logo has gone through several transformations including two flying V styles. In 1997, the Canucks new logo featured a Haida-style orca breaking out of a patch of ice to form a stylized letter "C."

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.

NHL Team Names 1

It's s Stanley Cup time, so let us look at some NHL team name origins. The NHL divides the 31 teams into two conferences: the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Each conference is split into two divisions: the Eastern Conference contains 16 teams (eight per division), while the Western Conference has 15 teams (seven in the Central Division and eight in the Pacific Division).

Founded in 1993 by The Walt Disney Company as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, the team's name comes from the 1992 Disney film The Mighty Ducks. Disney sold the franchise in 2005 and the name of the team was changed to the Anaheim Ducks before the 2006–07 season.

The Boston Bruins were owned by businessman Charles Adams and he wanted his new franchise to have brown and yellow team colors to match his stores. Bruins (bears) have long been used for team names and to suggest strength and power.

The Buffalo Sabres is just a name that was chosen in a contest, though the team's management did want to avoid the the buffalo and bison team names that were attached to area teams in the past.

The Calgary Flames picked up that name when the team was in Atlanta. It commemorated the burning of the city in the Civil War - which seems like an odd thing to commemorate. When the team moved to Calgary, management held a contest and the fans wanted to maintain the name. The story is that the flames now represent Alberta's petroleum industry.

The Chicago Blackhawks' original owner, Frederic McLaughlin, named the team in honor of the Black Hawk Battalion, the U.S. 86th Infantry Division, which he served with in WWI. The unit was named after a Chief Black Hawk. The name used as a single word for the hockey team and later for the Blackhawk helicopter, are examples of designating certain Native Americans as "worthy adversaries" though the name has been part of the controversy over the use of Native American names and symbols for sports teams.