Greatest rejected NHL team names

One could all but fill a duplicate league with NHL team nicknames that have never come to fruition, but could be taken seriously if they did.

Many newfangled or relocated franchises have passed over a radiant opportunity to honor a unique attribute of their market. Another one missed a chance to take the name of its first minor-league affiliate.

Many choices could have connoted pride in a team’s home base, its vocation or both just as much, or maybe more than the victor in a given nickname contest.

Among the candidates that won out, most NHL team nicknames cannot draw any disdain. Some simply beat out another heavyweight in an outcome that can still make for a credible debate.

Recognizing those runners-up is the purpose of this ranking. Even for those not wishing to pile on an active moniker, it is worth imagining what could have been.

10. Minnesota Blue Ox
One of five losing finalists in the derby that went to the Wild, this is the only choice on this list that borders on gimmicky. Naturally, those who know Minnesota folklore should appreciate the effort to acknowledge, by extension, Paul Bunyan through his trusty ox, Babe.

But there were probably more dignified ways to incorporate the tall tale into the team name, which is likely why Blue Ox was a runner-up. If only someone had the foresight to the team’s first minor-league affiliate, the IHL’s Cleveland Lumberjacks.

Regardless, you cannot fault the creativity and desire to make the brand uniquely Minnesotan. A mascot with Bunyan ties would have been on the same plane as the New Jersey Devils and their nod to the cryptic Jersey Devil legend.

9. New York Giants
When entrepreneur Tex Rickard gained a team in Madison Square Garden, he tentatively planned to name it after the local National League baseball entrant and a year-old football franchise. That was before the pun “Tex’s Rangers” gained traction and the team took the ice accordingly.

Under different circumstances, the local sports scene would have had a year-round trinity proudly representing the city’s distinctions. New York has long been a continental behemoth in population, tourism and commerce.

The name would have fit Rickard’s organization all the more by the time it emerged as the Big Apple’s long-lasting Original Six satellite. The only reason it does not rank higher here is because, given the way the NFL’s Giants have stuck, one must wonder if it could have lasted in hockey, even while the franchise remained stable. By the latter half of the 20th century, the arrangement could have grown awkward, as it would have been the last of its kind.

8. Philadelphia Keystones
Pennsylvania is an exception to the common practice of a university taking its state’s nickname and appending it to the athletic department. When Philadelphia’s 1967 expansion franchise launched, it entertained thoughts of picking up that loose puck in the Keystone State.

According to a retrospective by Jay Greenberg, franchise co-founder Bill Putnam considered at least a dozen also-rans. Of those, Keystones and the iffy idea of Liberty Bells stood out for their specific ties to the state and city, respectively.

Given its three Merriam-Webster definitions, the keystone would have been a solid choice for reasons beyond Pennsylvania pride. It connotes immovable forces and indispensable nuclei.

7. New Jersey Generals
Like Philadelphia, New Jersey had a dozen noted candidates for its new franchise, eventually settling on the Devils. The aforementioned tie-ins to local legends made for a sound settlement, despite mass misgivings from religious demographics.

Had management conceded to that crowd, it would not have gone wrong with Generals. The occupation in question demands uncompromising discipline, toughness and focus. While a hockey game is a comparatively trivial setting, the same qualities key every winning cause.

6. Nashville Ice Tigers
Even before they settled on a nickname, Nashville’s franchise founders chose the saber-tooth tiger emblem based on fossil findings in the city more than a quarter-century prior. Of the choice of Predators over Ice Tigers, a recent post by the local NBC television affiliate editorialized, “Looks like Nashville dodged a bullet with that one.”

But the margin of quality between those names is not that wide. The saber-tooth tiger was one of the top predators of the colloquial Ice Age. If team ownership had craved a less generalized name to match its logo, Ice Tigers would have perfectly acknowledged the species on the sweaters and tied it in with the playing surface.

To its credit, the Ice Tigers nickname did ultimately go to a local youth hockey program.

5. Minnesota Voyageurs
Granted, this would not quite have evoked the same visions of Viking settlements the way the state’s NFL nickname does. The etymology of “voyageur” stems from French settlers in Atlantic Canada.

With that being said, the metaphor of determination through a rough, prolonged expedition toward a greater gain would work for any hockey team. For this particular fan base, it could have punctuated the virtual voyage to convince the NHL to come back after an agonizing seven-year hiatus.

In addition, this was the best of the purely plural names Minnesota contemplated for its second NHL entrant. It also floated Northern Lights, which was too close to the bygone North Stars brand, and White Bears, which might have created an uncomfortable ursine overload with the Boston Bruins.

4. New Jersey Colonials
Football has the New England Patriots, baseball the New York Yankees, basketball the Philadelphia 76ers. But neither the NHL nor New Jersey’s pro sports scene has had a lasting team nickname synonymous with the American Revolution.

But in 1982, patriotism stood a substantial chance of figuring into the Garden State’s gift from Colorado. In fact, Patriots was one of the 12 reported candidates for the Rockies-turned-Devils. Americans was another.

But the NFL already had its Patriots, and four decades earlier, another NHL team named the Americans had folded across the Hudson River. There had since arisen the long-tenured and unaffiliated Rochester Americans, Buffalo’s AHL partner.

Had the Rockies renamed themselves the New Jersey Colonials, they would have acknowledged the state’s role in America’s founding with a moniker that has never been tapped in professional sports.

3. Manitoba Moose
When the Atlanta Thrashers transferred to Winnipeg, the choice came down to reviving the old NHL team’s name or taking that of the AHL franchise it was nudging out. Ownership chose the former, but kept Mick E. Moose as the new Winnipeg Jets team mascot.

It was a fitting compromise. Nostalgic fans made an effortless case and won, but the moose is no emblem to dismiss. It is the largest, sturdiest and toughest of Canada’s non-carnivorous land fauna.

To reaffirm their understanding of that, higher-ups revived the Manitoba Moose brand when they brought the farm team back home. What will happen if and when Winnipeg’s AHL affiliate gets a place of its own remains to be seen.

2. San Jose Blades
Presidential elections are not the only venue where one can win the popular vote, yet lose the contest. That happened when Bay Area hockey fans chose “Blades” as the preferred moniker for the San Jose expansion team in 1991.

Per the New York Times’ Joe Lapointe, executive vice president Mike Levin had misgivings about the poll’s top choice because it “had a gang connotation.” In turn, they swam with the silver-medalist Sharks, which has turned out to be a great choice in its own right.

Still, Blades (which was another New Jersey reject) also has a harmless twofold meaning in hockey. It is a term for both the sharp, silver bottoms of a player’s skates and the curved endings of sticks.

Moreover, in an ironic twist, the Sharks had the IHL’s Kansas City Blades as their farm team for their first five seasons.

1. Arizona Scorpions
Just like the Sharks, the NHL’s Phoenix/Arizona franchise made a sound move by choosing a predatory animal from the locality as its mascot. The Coyotes are not affectionately dubbed the “Desert Dogs” for nothing. The species’ place as a dominant force in the Southwestern wilderness makes it a fitting symbol for a regional hockey team.

In the same vein, the other popular choice would have worked in a hockey context as well. The scorpion is an undersized creature with pincers and stingers that make it a two-way threat on offense and defense.

Having a venomous arachnid to symbolize the state’s NHL team would have been all the more fitting two years later. When Major League Baseball granted Arizona a franchise, the team christened itself the Diamondbacks after a venomous reptile. That could have made for a fascinating motif in the market.