The Las Vegas NHL expansion team, set to begin play in 2017, still needs a name. Owner Bill Foley wanted “Black Knights;” West Point wasn’t cool with that. So Foley’s got some other ideas, and they’re varying degrees of uncreative.
“There are three names the team appears to be moving forward with: the Desert Hawks, the Red Hawks, and the Nighthawks. These names were all registered as several different domain names by Black Knight IP Holding Company, LLC, the company owned by Las Vegas hockey owner Bill Foley within the last few weeks.”
The iteration doesn’t matter—Hawks are boring. As far as predatory animal team names go, only Wildcats are more generic. And hey, there’s already an well-known and successful hockey team who already have “Hawks” in their name. (I am of course talking about Miami University.)
Our Tim Burke, an expert on both animals and on states, provided this offhand list of animals native to Nevada, many of which would make for a fine team name: antelopes, bats, bobcats, mountain lions, jackrabbits, weasels, owls, sandpipers, flycatchers, scorpions, bighorns, bison, lynx, foxes, sidewinders.
Las Vegas Jackrabbits would be a great team name! Do that one.
Correction, 5:45 p.m.: As annoyingly pointed out by Tom Scocca, and helpfully pointed out by the Audubon Society’s Erik Schneider, I have misidentified these hawks as hawks.
- RedHawks are not a real bird, but a bowdlerization of “Redskins,” the previous name of Miami (OH) sports teams. No, you’re thinking of red-tailed hawks.
- Nighthawks are actually nightjars, an entirely different order of bird.
- Desert hawks are not a thing. Just, like, a regular hawk that lives in the desert I guess.
I apologize for the confusion.