Now that I live in Nevada I get to hear all the latest updates on professional sports teams moving to Las Vegas on the local news. I actually live further away from Las Vegas now even though I am in Nevada then I did when I lived in the East Valley in Arizona.
In June the NHL
announced that there will be a new expansion team in Las Vegas, making it the
31st team in the league, beginning play in the 2017-18 season. The
next step for the City of Sin is to come up with a name and if you are a fan of
obscure names you are in luck. Get ready for the Las Vegas Desert Knights!!!
Reportedly the final
name had been Nighthawks followed by back up names of Desert Hawks and Red
Hawks but they were deemed too close to the Chicago Blackhawks so the names
were all jettisoned. Next up came Black Knights, pretty cool name but the Army
said “NO” so it went to Knights but there is the London Knights in the Ontario
Hockey League so those too were kicked to the curb. So here we are at the
Desert Knights.
While writing the post I
did some searching to find out if there was anything I could use to repurpose
to create a logo mock up and I did find out that there are a couple of biker
gangs named Desert Knights, so the team has that going for them. Some names
that I could suggest based on Nevada wildlife would be Golden Eagles or
Mountain Lions. There are no NHL teams with similar names, obviously in the NFL
but these are different enough. I did find a couple of colleges with the Golden
Eagles name but nothing major. Two names that would be 100% better than Desert
Knights.
Now on to news announced
today, the Nevada Oversight Committee voted to recommend $750 million public
funding for an NFL stadium in Las Vegas in an attempt to lure the Raiders to
town. In addition to the public funding, the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has
plans to offer $650 million and the Raiders are offering $500 million for a Las
Vegas stadium. Nearly $2 billion would build a beautiful 65,000 seat domed
stadium that would also be the home of the UNLV football team.
I wouldn’t feel any
different about the Raiders being in Las Vegas and the taxes being raised are room
taxes in Las Vegas so it doesn’t bother me but having seen the Mariners and
Seahawks almost move and the Sonics stolen I feel bad for the cities that loose
professional teams because it affects the fans.
Interesting that the NHL is the first stick and ball sport to move into Vegas. Will be curious to see how the fan reaction is. the NBA has stated they would not put a team there due to the gambling aspect, but they also have a sponsor agreement with online sports gambling now so maybe things have changed. I always find expansion teams exciting. A perfect name would have been "High Rollers" in my opinion. I'm sure Desert Knights will be shortened to Knights in speech if not officially by the end if season #1.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping the NBA returns to Seattle first and with Stern gone that is more possible now compared to when he was still commissioner.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking another name that would work would be the Silver Miners or just Miners, Nevada is a big state for silver.