The Edmonton Elks. It is official. That will be the new name for the Edmonton Football Team. The team made the announcement whilst revealing their new logo and helmet design.
The team unveiled their name online highliting connections to the past with the new name. As well as having the logo on their homefield and merchandise ready to go. You really feel like the marketing team were ready to face a challenge here. It is a truism that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. But, I do believe Edmonton have done a solid job here knowing there would always be people who complained whatever the name change was to be.
It was last summer that Edmonton decided to move away from their traditional Eskimos name. Much as with the Washington Football Team in the NFL, societal pressure was building for a name change. But the process was expedited by major sponsors threatening to walk away.
By December we were noting a top ten for replacement names for the temporarily named Edmonton Football Team. By February of this year that list had ben cut to seven names. One quite popular entry was for Edmonton Elk(s). It even harked back to 1922 when the Edmonton Elks existed for one game in the regular season and the 1922 Grey Cup.
So we came to the announcement Edmonton fans had been waiting for. According to the club, Elk was “highly favoured through all demographic categories,” and also supported by players and coaches.
The team will also sport a new helmet design too, yellow in colour with green antlers stretching across the back.
Edmonton Elks is fine as a plural too
One area of debate had been whether the plural of Elk was, well, Elk. Which it is. But it can also be Elks. Apparently according to 3downnation, “After lengthy debate, consultation with linguistics experts from the Oxford Dictionary and the University of Alberta’s linguistics department, the name “Elks” was finally chosen, adding the “s” to the original choice “Elk” .
So they made the right call there too. Edmonton Elks sounds so much better don’t you think?
“The entire process has been exciting.” Team president and CEO Chris Presson stated. “It has allowed us to keep our iconic green and gold colours as well as the double E, while exploring new opportunities with our new primary logo, secondary logo and wordmark.”
I am sure now Edmonton fans will have the same focus as the rest of the league. They will be wanting to see the Edmonton Elks take the field. Just as the rest of us are more than ready for a 2021 CFL season to get underway.
Banner image: the new Elks logo and hashtag. Image from myeastkootenaynow.com