Why All The Extra Letters?

As you may have heard, there a leagues across Canada rebranding themselves to remove insensitive words from their names. The word "midget" was deemed to be insensitive, and I'm not here to debate that. If you want to have that debate, take it offline. What I am here to discuss is the new name of the former Manitoba Female Midget Hockey League which was the AAA program for girls in Manitoba under the age of 18. The logo and the name were changed this season with the removal of "midget" from the league vernacular, so what did Manitoba land on for a new name and logo?

We'll go back to April where Hockey Manitoba agreed to remove the word at the urging of the Little People of Manitoba organization. Samantha Rayburn-Trubyk, president of Little People of Manitoba, told Elisha Dacey of Global News, "It's a word that comes from the freak-show era days, where little people were put on display to be laughed at, ridiculed, mocked. The 'M' word also stems from a midge, which means tiny fly that spreads disease. I’m not sure if anybody would want to be referred to as that."

Hockey Manitoba and Hockey Winnipeg both began the process of removing "midget" from leagues they oversee, and other sport organizations have done the same. The move follows a December move by Hockey Canada to remove the word from their age groupings.

In saying that, the MFMHL moves to become the MFHLU18AAA...LMNOP. For real... except the LMNOP part. The Manitoba Female Midget Hockey League will now be known as the Manitoba Female Hockey League Under-18 AAA moving forward as they fall in line with the new mandates set by Hockey Manitoba. While I like the "Manitoba Female Hockey League" portion, I'm not certain that the "U18AAA" or the "Under-18 AAA" even needs to be included on the logo. Just roll with "Manitoba Female Hockey League" as your league name and you're golden. No further explanation needed on the logo.

The MFMHL webpage is offline as of right now, so it appears that the rebranding is underway unless the league hasn't been paying its bills for the hosting service. The latter is unlikely considering the number of players the MFHL sends to U SPORTS, so it seems the MFHL website may be under construction as the renamed league gets itself in order.

Just leave that "U18AAA" part out of it.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!