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!
