I missed one.
As I was engaging in “educated speculation” on the possibility of Las Vegas Desert Knights being the new NHL team name last week, I acknowledged that I could have missed a domain registration related to the team, and it turns out that I did.
On Saturday, a handful of domains containing the name Las Vegas Sand Knights were registered privately through a variety of registrars. The name sounds ridiculous enough that I initially didn’t think much of it, but just to be sure I poked around a little bit.
It turns out that sandknights.com was registered publicly to Black Knight IP Holding Company, LLC – one of Las Vegas team owner Bill Foley’s companies – on August 23.
This definitely muddles things, as the domain was registered on the same day that trademarks were filed for Desert Knights, Silver Knights, and Golden Knights.
The big question is why Black Knight would trademark three names at the same time as registering the domain for a name they did not trademark. Additionally, why would they register the Desert Knights domains privately and then turn around and register sandknights.com publicly?
On top of that, no domains other than sandknights.com related to that name are registered publicly to Black Knight. Related private registrations include lasvegassandknights.com, lvsandknights.com, and vegassandknights.com.
Foley has already stated that the backup plan is Las Vegas Nighthawks. We’re at a point in the process where we should be seeing fewer names as options, not more.
It could be that this is just misdirection on behalf of the Las Vegas organization. It could be that everything up until this has been misdirection. I don’t know.
So Las Vegas Sand Knights emerges as a possibility but it might raise more questions than answers.
Interesting, I think at this point we can rule out any Hawks names, just very badly received and hated generally, he must know it was a horrible choice.
I can see the desert/sand link obviously but again why same day as TM’s, maybe that one will come.
All I know is the more I read and polls I see that Desert and Silver are far and away the favorites, golden is just odd and would piss off us in Vegas, we are the SILVER state. Enough that Foley gets his Knights but give us something, Desert/Sand or Silver, give us something lol
I submit the Las Vegas Golden Desert Silver Knights for consideration.
People who pretend Nighthawks is not the best of the bunch….lol
Pretend? I see what you did there, reverse psychology, not gonna work, its a horrible name, so did you catch the hawks game, ya which one lol Very unoriginal, stealing another teams name, for shame. Regardless hwo you feel about Desert/Silver/Sand at least its original.
Nighthawks is the only name that rises above ECHL/Collegiate grade. Blues/Blue Jackets/Blueshirts? A Blackhawk is neither a hawk nor a plane. Seriously go back to HS English.
Looks like you missed SandKnight.com, typed that in and ended up at an ebay page, the 4 domains are for sale!
Yeah, I didn’t want to come across as promoting that sale so I didn’t specifically mention it. And the singular SandKnight.com seems worthless to me but what do I know?
Not worthless, you should always get the singular and plural, biggest type in mistake people make! They’ll bleed traffic 🙂
Besides wouldn;t a future play be known as a “Sand Knight”
Everyone will indeed adjust, and if they knock the logo and colors out of the park for Desert Knights or Silver Knights, it will still be iconic.
I do think Foley is going with a form of Knights. I don’t just say that because of the trademarks, but because of he quote where he said he had a whole culture worked out around Black Knights that he wishes the people of Vegas could have seen, and I think he is just going to switch that same ‘grand idea’ to whichever other form of Knights he uses.
I wish he had gone with a fan vote, but seeing how many thousands of names have been suggested at this point, from Polar Bears to Nightjars to Owls to Strippers to Lights to Nights to Neon, maybe he just figures he can’t please everyone (though he could, if he had talked the National Hypocrisy League into Aces).
I think that Foley’s West Point tribute is not just about the name, but clearly about the values he had instilled there, and my guess is that he sees a knight as a personification of those values – not just the nickname of the school – as a knight is a warrior (like those in the army) who is also expected to manifest a certain kind of nobility, in theory.
I think he was telling the basic truth (give or take the number of Knight names if Sand Knights is for real) a few weeks ago, when he said something along the lines of:
“Knight will be in there somewhere (ie, Desert, Silver, or Golden) but we have a bird we could go with too (Night/Red/Desert Hawk)…”
To me, the obvious read is the correct one here. Foley seems like the sort of man who prides himself on being ‘knight-like’ in a certain way, and pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes to sneak a different name in under the radar just would not seem to agree with his ethos, at least from afar.
It better be Desert or Silver lol