A spokesman for the new NHL franchise in Las Vegas confirmed to NHL.com that the nicknames Desert Knights, Golden Knights, and Silver Knights have all been trademarked – signaling that the newest NHL club could have one of those names.
Team owner Bill Foley is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and has been pretty set on having his team have the name “Knights” in some way, shape or form in reference to their athletic teams being called the Black Knights. This isn’t the first time he’s named something from his alma mater, as he also owns Black Knight Financial Services.
Last month, Foley said he wanted to have a name and color scheme in place by the time the Los Angeles Kings play preseason games against Dallas and Colorado Oct. 7 & 8 but explained copyright issues could pose a problem.
One of those problems is that the OHL’s London Knights own the Knights nickname in Canada.
“My goal is to have a name that I can create a culture around and people, the players and the fans will understand the connection and the names of the team and it has to stand for a lot of things that I strongly believe in, perseverance, dedication, honor, never give up, never give in,” Foley said. “All these things I’m trying to put together with a name.
“We want the name to fit our goals and what we’re trying to accomplish, and I’m really confident that we’re going to hit it and do really well.”
It’ll be interesting to see what name and color scheme they use, considering the Oakland Raiders of the NFL is in talks to move the silver and black football team to Las Vegas as well.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal has some insight into the name search, reporting Foley’s group has registered a couple of internet domain names.
Last week, the domains lasvegasdesertknights.com, vegasdesertknights.com and desertknightshockey.com were privately registered to Moniker Privacy Services, the same company that procured the domain name to NHL.com.
To add more confusion to this story, they are still keeping Nighthawks as a name under consideration.
