Sports teams continue to penalize themselves with tone-deaf nicknames and marketing

Last week, my colleague Brittany MacLean and I rated the newly released names and logos of the Northern Super League teams, which begins its inaugural season next spring.

After that discussion, I kept thinking about names and logos of teams. What's in a name, anyway? One could argue that it sets the tone for the culture of the team, charting a course for narratives and offering ideas about ways in which fans engage.

The NSL teams largely chose names connected to the beautiful and vast geography in this stunning country; Vancouver Rise, Ottawa Rapid, Halifax Tides, Calgary Wild, and Montreal Roses. The exception was AFC Toronto, but "Tdot" often likes to consider itself an exception to some degree.

The Professional Women's Hockey League did not do this when it revealed team names in September after playing its inaugural season without nicknames. It went in a very different direction and chose varying names that, in most cases, have a regional significance: Minnesota Frost, Boston Fleet, New York Sirens, Victoire de Montreal (Montreal Victory), Ottawa Charge, and Toronto Sceptres. 

The definition of sceptre is: a staff or wand held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of royal or imperial insignia, signifying sovereign authority.

Some discussion around it claimed the hockey sticks could be seen as symbols of power, like a sceptre was for a queen. 

WATCH | Ranking every NSL team name, logo:

I am an advocate of women's sports and was excited that the league got off to an explosive start. From draft day in the CBC atrium to the thrilling end of the season, the storylines of fan culture were fantastic.

It's not often that a new team name comes without any criticism, but the response to Toronto's team name did not go as perhaps anticipated. The comments to the release on social media were not overwhelmingly positive, with many remarking on the connection to monarchy being out of touch with reality, and I had a few people asking me repeatedly how to actually spell "sceptre," which is spelled "scepter" in the U.S.

Dr. Melissa Kimber is a professor at McMaster University and also plays hockey. She wrote a comment on Instagram that captured the sentiment of many: "Okay, I'm super excited for season 2 of PWHL AND wondered how, in September, which contains our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, that Toronto has wrapped itself around Colonial symbolism? Was there any consultation with Indigenous communities about the names and symbols?"

That led me to wonder about the connection to royals and Toronto? What was so compelling that a woman's league would choose a sceptre? Some of the discussions I had suggested the hockey sticks could be seen as sceptres, symbolizing a royal power that is not beloved across the board. 

In fact, CBC Radio's Here and Now had a segment about the name and callers were not too fond of it. In a nutshell, Toronto (York) was set up on (Indigenous land) to be a place for people who wanted to escape the American revolution and remained loyal subjects of the English monarch.

Sceptres and maces were featured all over Toronto in portraits of Queen Victoria. Its significance was undoubtedly that monarchical power was prominent. Perhaps the PWHL wanted to feature queens as symbols of power and prowess. And we're not talking queens like those in Sarah Nurse's personal brand (released before the team name was announced) or the legendary Toronto "queens" who perform in drag shows at Woody's on Church St. 

But is using Queen Victoria's era the best way to showcase a team of incredibly popular and talented women hockey players in 2024? On online petition for a name change says that choosing sceptres as a nod to colonial empires goes against the rich diversity of Canada's present.