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Winnipeg’s AHL team called St. John’s IceCaps; Good nickname or silly nonsense?

St. John's IceCaps

Now that the Winnipeg Jets have a name and a logo, their AHL farm team in St. John’s, Newfoundland was in need of the same treatment themselves. Today, they unleashed the team’s new look and name upon the minor league hockey world. The former Manitoba Moose will be called the St. John’s IceCaps.

No, that’s not a typo and yes, your grammar alarm is going off big time. Then again, the AHL is a league that has two teams nicknamed “Admirals” so let’s just have some fun with this. Yes, you’d better believe that both the Milwaukee and Norfolk Admirals had better be instant rivals with the IceCaps. Titanic Night at the arena should be a lot of fun, especially for the fan that ends up being the “king of the world.”

Team President and CEO Danny Williams gives his thoughts on the name and look.

“I am so pleased to present the St. John’s IceCaps and our new logo to fans, as we begin a new era of professional hockey in the province,” said Mr. Williams. “The IceCaps is a name that I am confident hockey fans will support as it captures both our rich hockey history with a reference to the Caps, while at the same time capturing a natural element that is iconic for the province, ice. We wanted to ensure that, although the team is based in our capital city, the province as a whole can identify with it and embrace it as their own.”

Never mind that whole thing with there being an NHL team referred to as the “Caps” already, their reasons behind the name make sense. It’s all about identity for the area and their home city and its importance to them. That’s great and wonderful and good for the folks in St. John’s to once again have AHL hockey.

That said, reading the marketing buzz words behind the reasons for the team name and the team logo make for a hilarious read. Here’s a sample. First, the reason for the name IceCaps.

The team name, IceCaps, is a clever combination of the history we are so proud of and the climate and landscape for which we are so well known.

The name is nostalgic of the St. John’s Caps, the local NAHA senior hockey team, circa 1960. The Caps, of course, is short for Capitals, St. John’s being the capital city of Newfoundland and Labrador.


That’s a creative use of the word “clever” at the very least. As for the team’s logo, there’s a lot to be said for getting inventive and silly all at once.
The logo features a jagged mountain or rock with the geographic shape of Newfoundland and Labrador on its surface like snow or ice. This province is beloved for its rugged landscape, geology, and snow-capped mountains in our northern regions.

All right, that’s a pretty neat touch. It also teaches some of us silly Americans a bit about Canadian geography. We could all use some brushing up on that, especially when it comes to extreme eastern Canada. With that said, these next two pieces are just crazy.

The colours in the logo represent the coldness of ice, as well as our ocean culture. In fact, when you look at the word IceCaps, you can see the line where the ocean meets the sky. The colours also stay true to those of our parent NHL team, the Winnipeg Jets.

The mountain graphic and the IceCaps font are purposely jagged and edgy: rugged like our land, strong like our people, and fierce like our hunger for hockey.


Mind. Blown.

We think it looks nice, but the name itself is rather silly. What do you make of it though? Let us know in the poll and in the comments.

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