July 31, 2015

| No Comments

As we reported in a post a few years back, Quebec City and Las Vegas were our picks for cities that the NHL should covet. Last week the NHL confirmed that Las Vegas and Quebec City were the only two cities to submit expansion bids. As a result, Quebec City and Las Vegas are now at the forefront of the NHL expansion movement. Owners in those two cities were the only ones to submit expansion applications before the deadline, the league has confirmed. Quebecor submitted a bid to bring the Nordiques back to Quebec City, while Bill Foley applied for a Las Vegas franchise.

As a hockey fan I love Las Vegas and I love the sport of hockey so I would love to see a team in the desert. A new arena is under construction on the Las Vegas strip and is set to open in the spring of 2016. Foley’s Hockey Vision Las Vegas ticket drive collected almost 14,000 deposits, which helped pave the way for the city to be a strong candidate. So while we do not want to count our chickens before they hatch, we thought that we would have fun with some nickname candidates for the potential Las Vegas NHL franchise.

7 Potential Nicknames for an NHL Team in Las Vegas

Ok so this list features some obvious choices, but there are a number of great options for a sports franchise in Las Vegas. Here are seven worth consideration:

Las Vegas Wranglers – this was the moniker for the ECHL franchise that calls Vegas home. A pretty cool name with some great potential for a logo.
Las Veges Outlaws – well this name is taken by the Arena Football League’s Las Veags Outlaws. So someone’s marketing team has already beat us to it. Still a pretty cool name with again some cool logo potential. (I believe that there was a CFL team in the 90’s with this name?)
Las Vegas Thunder – did you know that in the 1990’s, Vegas had an IHL team called the Las Vegas Thunder? Well it was a good name then and its a good name now.
Las Vegas Heat – this one is just too obvious right? There is currently a track club in Vegas that is called the Las Vegas Heat.
Las Vegas Scorpions – Scorpions are 8-legged arachnids (distantly related to spiders) recognized by the two crab-like pincers at the front end, a flattened body, and a long tail with stinger on the back end and are native to the Las Vegas area. Replace the football with a hockey puck in the logo below and voila.
Las Vegas Ice Knights – has a cool ring to it. Hey Mr. Foley if you use this one, I would like lifetime season tickets please. A cool name with some great potential for color schemes and logos. Rumour has it that Bill Foley likes the moniker “Las Vegas Black Knights” so this may fit.
Las Vegas Aces – probably the most obvious choice. Folks have already created a number of different logos for this nickname. I actually like this, but is it too obvious and does the NHL want a semantic reference with gambling related name?