Oklahoma City Barons: How’s that for an AHL team nickname?
Nothing official yet, but for the second time in a week I’ve been told that Oklahoma City’s new American Hockey League team will be named the Barons.
I heard it at the Ford Center last Friday before Game 6 of the NBA Playoff series between the Thunder and Lakers. The Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson got an email to the same effect today.
If it’s true, I’ve got a couple thoughts:
– Sounds good to me.
– I hope the colors are black and gold.
– The Barons made the final four of our Name the Team bracket in The Oklahoman and NewsOK back in 2008, when the team were were naming was the NBA franchise about to move here from Seattle. Personally, it was my second favorite for the squad now known as the Thunder. My personal ballot:
1) Thunderbirds: Still the best name and could have been shortened to be just Thunder too. Think of all the combination. Thunder, Birds, T-birds. I would have also honored the military (the Oklahoma-based National Guard 45th Infantry Division is nicknamed the Thunderbirds). I like it so much, I wish the AHL had chosen it.
2) Barons: I think it fits with the state’s Oil Barons past, plus it just sounded cool. I don’t blame Clay Bennett and Co. for not choosing this given all that went down in Seattle. I still like how Kevin Durant looked in this faux Barons uniform. To this point, we know of know smoking-gun emails, trials over leases or online documentaries associated with this new franchise, so we’re probably all clear on the Barons image.
3) Thunder: Don’t care for singular nicknames, but I have to admit this has grown on me.
4) Outlaws: Non-starter, but remember our contest was an online polling of readers to get down to a Final Four and a winner.
By the way, the winner was: the Thunder. So, NewsOK readers, you can say you named OKC’s NBA team and offered the AHL a good suggestion.
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Comments
I was waiting to see what name would be chosen by the hockey club. With all the success of the NBA team now in town, I thought that the club would open it up to the public (since they will support or not support this team) to choose a name.
Maybe if enough people start writing to the team, they will give the fans a voice in the matter.
The Springfield Franchise ISN’T being moved, the Oilers are just activating the dormant franchise. Get your facts straight!
The biggest hurdle Funk Jr. needs to climb is to put some Ice Girls in place and learn from his father’s mistakes during the last years of the Lund Era. Barons will be fine as a name, and like Mike Sherman, I had it in my top two for the NBA team. BTW–Thunder was a name I was never very keen on, but–it has grown on me as well. Barons will be fine–jist make sure we have some Ice Girls and I bet it all turns out pretty good.
ha ha, the trust fund guys couldn’t name the team after themselves due to robber baron connotations, so they’re floating a trial baloon for the hockey team.
There’s been triple A hockey in OKC since the Fairgrounds Arena days. The nickname always be the Blazers. I’m fired up about the prospect of AAA hockey in OKC- didn’t know the Blazers of 90s vintage won’t so good hockey- dunmp and chase. if the trust fund millionares name the team after themselves I’ll never attend a game.
Just a memory~but it might give you a grin. Years ago, as copy writer for a firm, I was one of about 6 ‘pros’ to name a new Tulsa sports
team. No problem, just write a list of original names on deadline. (Now keep in mind all the
good ones you can’t use!) So when I hear THE THUNDER(S) I cheer for the list writers. It’s OURS. I saw it written on 2 cars today. A writer’s dream come true! BTW, we failed Tulsa.
Curtis Spooner approves this team name. Please leave the colors Black and gold so he doesn’t have to buy new jerseys.
Also please let steve crookshank know he is still the worst ref in the CHL. And Mr. Sherman, please tell your people to add hockey back as a tab under sports.
-Robert (On behalf of Curtis Spooner)
i kinda like the name too. do we really need any ice girls to make this team a success? Not likely. Its only for show and if it comes to that, why doesnt the owners of all the adult clubs in the city by the team instead and have their dancers do the show, since most will go see the dancers anyway..and won’t care about the main focus, ie, the team.
To FOD
Really?
1) Big deal. Different club altogether.
2) It does tie us to the parent club. OILERS and Oil BARONS.
3) Kinda works since we have a working oil rig on the Capital grounds. (also answered under number 2.) and the Oil boom days…
4) doesn’t stand with number 2 and 3 now.
Read a little history, The Names works on every level. I suppose there are those who wanted to name the club the OKC hook-echoes eh?
Yes…we need Ice Girls to make this endeavor a success. There are only about 5,000 people in the greater OKC area who even know who won the Stanley Cup last year. Funk Jr. needs to keenly analyze all the mistakes his father made in losing six million dollars in those last nine years of the Lund Era and not be able to field a championship contender once the merger with WPHL took place. The hockey IQ in OKC is not great despite those glory years when we were affiliated with the Bruins. We need Ice Girls and Funk Jr. needs to to have the entire organization knee deep in Ice Girls.Despite what some misguided hockey purists in this market may want to think–copious amounts of overt sexual innuendo and cheap beer will be needed to make this thing work.
We dont need any ice girls, the blazers were awesome without the ice girls, in this society, its all about the sex, so if there are ice girls, more people will go, thats ridiculous, i attended lots of blazers game and think they can do a great job and they dont need the women to bring in fans, seriously, who goes to the thunder games to see just the “thunder girls”, not many, that would be a waste of money, right?
Edgar, if you remember the Okc Blazers of the AAA days you also have to remember the Okc Stars. We always werent the Blazers.
El Prez, I agree. We need ice girls. I’ve always wondered why we haven’t had them. This would complete the hockey experience for me.
Funk Jr might be setting us up for a suprise on Wednesday.
@ FOD: I’ll bet if you tried REALLY hard, you could be an even BIGGER jerk.
St. Louis isn’t all that far from OKC, and I’m pleased to have the opportunity for another road trip to see — and report on — the Blues’ prospects in the AHL. Have been through OKC once before, on my way to Phoenix, and was impressed by the city. Looking forward to coming back for a visit again.
Oil Barons is a great idea for a name, and black and gold for a color scheme works for me.
Looking forward to seeing you all.
I am thoroughly excited about the up coming press conference to “officially” announce the team name. One thing I’m sure everyone is wanting, is more coverage in all the local media and so far all these blogs about the new team is great, however, there needs to be a link at the header under sports for the new team. I was an avid Blazer fan and was disappointed at the coverage before they closed up shop, and then all of a sudden everyone was sad and that was it. Just remember one thing, to increase sales, you need coverage and advertisment.
i cant belive u people are complaining about what there name is going to be im just happy to get hockey back in this town its one of the most fun sports to watch and ice girls thats ridiculous a sports team is to watch sports not women look at the redhawks aaa baseball team here in okc they dont have bat girls or seventh inning stretch girls wtf
go barons!
Travis, Ice girls are used more-so to fill in time gaps than to distract from the game. The breaks that are used to clean the creases are breaks that need to be taken anyways, and it always adds entertainment!
Why don’t they just call them the “Cleveland’s Fire Sale”. The stylized B that was used for the Blazers logo in recent years was “borrowed” from the old Cleveland Barons logo. Now we’re going to take the long held name of the team that logo was stolen from, an incarnation of which was used recently in the AHL.
So, with 3 months to work with, all the management could come up with was a name that was only popular for the NBA team because of artistry in the Oklahoman uniform design contest because someone used the old Blazers color scheme.
In short, if the leakage is correct, we get a team name that is:
(1) Recycled from another team in the league
(2) Doesn’t tie us to the parent club in any way
(3) Doesn’t link the shared oil and natural gas heritage of our state and province
(4) Is reflective of nobility in one of the least elitist states in the country.
Bravo, management. I guess this is the giant pile of FAIL that we should become accustomed to.