From The Ground Up: North Names

The five markets with the most votes to be included in the North Division of our fantasy hockey league are final. Over 7,000 individual votes were cast in the poll (which is strange since its sister poll had more than 3,000 more.)

Here, I'm outlining those markets (alphabetically) along with the acceptable locators (listed below) for your team name nominations — which I'll begin accepting today by comment only. This is interesting because we're staying squarely in Canada for this entire division.

• CALGARY, Alberta
  Alberta | Calgary | Lethbridge


• EDMONTON, Alberta
  Alberta | Edmonton | Red Deer


• REGINA, Saskatchewan
  Saskatchewan | Regina


• SASKATOON, Saskatchewan
  Saskatchewan | Saskatoon


• WINNIPEG, Manitoba
  Manitoba | Winnipeg

DO NOT SUBMIT NAME NOMINATIONS VIA EMAIL. THEY WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

Submit your team name nominations by leaving a comment below. Email submissions will be discarded. I will accept nominations for one week at which point new comments on this post will be closed. Up to 20 name submissions that fit within the following parameters will be included in the name selection process which will begin next weekend.

If you want your submission included, DO NOT:
• use the name of any current or past NHL or WHA team.
• use the name of any current AHL or ECHL team.
• use the name or close variation of any current or past professional sports team within the same market or geographical area.
• use the name of any team from Project: IHA.
• use any name that would be considered vulgar, obscene or in any way inappropriate. (Sorry, this is my call.)

If you decide to use a locator not already on the list above, be prepared to have it discarded. I'm not setting that in stone as a restriction, but I'm also not guaranteeing I'll include anything not on the list. Sorry for all the restrictions but sometimes you have to "guide" originality.

It was suggested that when submitting names you also submit a short reasoning for that name. I won't require that but I will recommend it since it might help your submission get votes later on if folks know where you got your idea.

Don't forget to make your submissions for the Northeast Division. You have until September 20.

Start submitting!

I've been reading some of the submissions and it's a little pathetic. I think a lot of you are trying too hard to find a name that "means something" to the point where you're losing sight of the fact that we're trying to name sports teams. Forget about trivial nonsense and suggest some names you'd want to chant in an arena of 20,000 people. Just something to think about when making your nominations.