Las Vegas is the home to the NHL’s newest franchise. The excitement for expansion has been running rampant for years, and now that the process is finally nearing completion, there are very few questions left to be answered. The biggest two, at this point, revolve around the players that the team will select in the upcoming expansion draft, and the name of the franchise itself.
Three names being considered by new Las Vegas #NHL team. No Knights.
The details and list: https://t.co/La6qpcIMJW pic.twitter.com/on0yYyMfOB
— Chris Creamer | SportsLogos.Net (@sportslogosnet) August 11, 2016
Due to the name “Knights” being owned in Canada by the OHL’s London Knights, as mentioned here, Bill Foley will have to find a different name for his franchise. While there was potential for Foley and the London Knights to reach some sort of agreement, those negotiations will not happen, per Foley himself.
Sports Illustrated transcribed a radio discussion with Foley on Sportsbook Radio, where Foley said:
It’s not Black Knights. That’s been vetted, and there were too many objections from my alma mater (West Point) and then (we got) some push-back from some other people, so we’ve put that one aside. But the name is going to have … Knights somewhere in some fashion, some way. Or, there’s one particular animal, a bird, that we have available to us that we might use. – Bill Foley
A report from Sportslogos.net recently mentioned that Vegas could potentially be down to three names: the Desert Hawks, Red Hawks, or Nighthawks. Each of the names makes sense, as Foley mentioned that the use of an animal, and specifically a bird, could be used in conjunction with the word “Knights”.
The speculation for those names being the last names in the running can be traced even further as each of those names were registered as domain names by Black Knight IP Holding Company, LLC, otherwise known as Foley’s company and the reason for the “Knights” name being so highly discussed in the first place.
