Four Word Team Names

Earlier this year we wrote about defenseman Bill Speer, who played for both the WHL's Salt Lake Golden Eagles and the WHA's New York Golden Blades, who we pointed out were among the unusual "Four Word Team Names", a group of clubs often from locations such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas or New York, who were christened with descriptive names, such as Fighting Saints, Golden Eagles or River Hawks.

Of note, we came across several teams which would have been four word teams in days gone by, but current naming trends have frequently combined two words into one, such as the St. John's IceCaps and the Winston-Salem IceHawks for example.

Additionally, when it came to college teams, we eliminated the words "University", "Institute" and "College", shortening the "University of Minnesota Golden Gophers" to the "Minnesota Golden Gophers" for the purposes of this list.

Leagues considered were North American professional and minor league teams active since 1970, Canadian Junior and American College leagues.

One final parameter, the word "of" was disregarded, particularly if used to create a team name that was a sentence, such as the "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim" or the "Beast of New Haven", which normally would have been the Anaheim Mighty Ducks or New Haven Beast if it weren't for some overly clever attempt at branding, which we are having no part of.

Now, onto the list of Four Word Team Names we were able to compile, but certainly invite you to submit any we may have missed.

WHA

New York Golden Blades

Bobby Sheehan of the short-lived Golden Blades

AHL

Prince Edward Island Senators

St. John's Maple Leafs

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

Marc-Andre Fleury while with the WBS Penguins

IHL

Des Moines Oak Leafs

Salt Lake Golden Eagles

Long Beach Ice Dogs

Nikolai Khabibulin looking particularly thrilled to be

a member of the Long Beach Ice Dogs

OHL

St. Catharines Black Hawks

Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds

Detroit Jr. Red Wings

Toronto St. Michael’s Majors

The Greyhounds most famous alumnus, Wayne Gretzky

QMJHL

Montreal Bleu Blanc Rouge

Cape Breton Screaming Eagles

St. John’s Fog Devils

Saint John Sea Dogs

ECHL

Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies

UHL

Thunder Bay Thunder Cats

Thunder Bay Thunder Hawks

Port Huron Border Cats

ATLANTIC HOCKEY

American International Yellow Jackets

CCHA

Bowling Green State Falcons

Lake Superior State Lakers

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Lake Superior State's Brian Rolston

HOCKEY EAST

Massachusetts Lowell River Hawks

WCHA

North Dakota Fighting Sioux

St. Cloud State Huskies

Goaltender Ed Belfour of the endangered Fighting Sioux

Seven of our 26 are thanks to the word "Saint" in the location of the club and five are due to a three word "location" combined with a singular team name. Only one club had a three word team name, the Bleu Blanc Rouge.

Finally, we came across one five word team, the Central Hockey League's overly long named Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees! We're not 100% certain, but we think their name contains an adjective, a conjunction, an interjection, a pronoun and even a gerund.

David Marshall of the Killer Bees

This is certainly not meant to be an all-encompassing list, and we certainly invite you to submit any foreign, lower level or overlooked names we have not included in the comments section below and we look forward to seeing your submissions!