The White Bears?

I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole today when I was searching for some trademark information. Trademarks are an interesting thing in that they can be abandoned or expire, allowing others to potentially purchase the trademark and use it for their own purpose. There's usually some legal maneuvering required as those who owned the trademarks are normally less than enthusiastic to let someone else capitalize on the trademark they didn't renew. I'm not a trademark or intellectual property lawyer in any way, shape, or form, but the bear shown above was almost Minnesota's NHL icon!

Before we go any further, we need to dive into a little Minnesota history because you're probably thinking, "I don't recall many bears in Minnesota," but there is a city named White Bear Lake primarily in Ramsey County just to the northeast of Minneapolis that sits on a lake of the same name. Usually, city names will reflect something about the area, so perhaps this "white bear" phenomenon in Minnesota isn't too far-fetched.

Polar bears, as we know, are white bears, but the chances of seeing a polar bear further south than the Arctic circle are rare. We can discount the idea that polar bears once roamed Minnesota, but there is another apex predator from the Ursus family that stretched across the prairies and into the Rockies before their habitat was greatly reduced. That would be the grizzly bear whose range can be as large as 600 square miles, and they historically had a range that would take them right near, if not into, the Minnesota borders. With fur that can be as white as snow through rare genetic variations, the colours of a grizzly bear's fur could be mistaken for a number of colours including gray, yellow, and the aforementioned white.

There is a story on a historic marker in White Bear Lake that speaks of the legend of an Indigenous brave who rescued a maiden from a fierce white bear, so there has to be some sort of truth built into the legend, right? According to linked article written by Jackie Bussjaeger in the White Bear Press,

"St. Paul historian Fletcher Williams, who was the director of the Minnesota Historical Society in the 1870s, had conducted many oral history interviews. One of his interviews revealed that the Dakota word 'mahto' today translates as 'white bear,' but in an older form of the language, it means 'grizzly bear.' The journals of Lewis and Clark confirm that Dakota and Lakota people referred to grizzlies as 'big white bears.'"

The rest of Miss Bussjaeger's article speculates on other legends about bears, but it would seem that the Dakotan word's meaning for "grizzly bear" would make the most sense in terms of the evolution of the word to mean "big white bear". Being that I'm not a native Minnesotan, I honestly don't know how well-known the white bear legend is in Minnesota, but it seemed to be fairly popular when the expansion Minnesota NHL franchise was to be named!

During the process of selecting the team name, the fans were invited to submit names for the team back in 1997. While the sting of losing the North Stars still made fans in Minnesota a litte unhappy as they wanted "their team" back, Minnesotans were looking to embrace their expansion franchise in a big way. As a result the names that were submitted saw the various name suggestions pared down to six finalists: Freeze, Northern Lights, Blue Ox, White Bears, Voyageurs, and Wild. On January 22, 1998, the team was officially christened as the "Minnesota Wild", but one other name appears that it was nearly the choice of the franchise based on what was trademarked in 1997!

According to the information on October 7, 1997, the Minnesota Wild Hockey Club, Inc. filed a trademark application for the word mark "White Bears" on October 7, 1997 - more than two months before they announced that "Wild" would be the team name. Of the five names that were dismissed in favour of "Wild", only "White Bears" had a trademark filed for it. Could we have truly seen the Minnesota White Bears take the ice in the NHL?

Glen Andresen's article on the Minnesota Wild website seems to indicate that that reality could have played out on January 22, 1998!

"Before that night, the 'Wild' nickname hadn't existed. Majka, and a small group of Minnesota Hockey Ventures Group employees were led by branding consultant Corky Hall in a lengthy process of picking the nickname. From over 13,000 submissions (which, back then, came in the form of emails, letters and faxes) from Minnesota hockey fans, there was a lot of clamoring to resurrect the North Stars nickname. A trademark issue with the NHL made that an impossibility, so Majka and his group arrived at six finalists 'that had potential': Freeze, Northern Lights, Blue Ox, White Bears, Voyageurs and Wild."

If Wild wasn't the top name of the six finalists, it appeared that one of the other five would have been the top pick. And which was the only one to have a trademark filed by the hockey club? If you read the previous paragraph, you know it was "White Bears". Logic would dictate that one would only trademark a name that one intends to use, so it appears that the Minnesota White Bears were closer to being real than not!

Andresen's article goes on to clarify how Wild was selected when Minnesota Wild Chief Operating Officer Matt Majka told Andresen, "It was a bit of a 'pick em' situation as we got to the end. We liked the marketing potential of 'Wild', so we went with it."

The rest, as they say, is history, but we're not done here. Glen Andresen's article also included mock-ups of the other names that didn't make the cut as designed by a Minneapolis Creative agency called Shinebox. Here's what they came up with for each name.

The Blue Ox in the upper-left leave me wanting a little more from the design as it feels like there's a lot of white space there. The Voyageurs in the middle feel as though the Los Angeles Kings got tangled up with the USHL's Youngstown Phantoms. The Northern Lights in the upper-right apparently were designed as Hypercolor jerseys (if you remember that trends from the 1990s) that changed colours as one's body warmed up or got colder. The Freeze in the lower-left feel more like a promotional jersey with a rather disappointing logo than an everyday jersey.

Those White Bears jerseys, though, are a thing of beauty. The description posted by Andresen reads,

"If you wanted a more traditional nickname, then it would have been the Minnesota White Bears. As Marty Havlat shows, the colors would have been anything but traditional. A cream color is mixed with an Atlantic blue. The logo is rather simple, but also very classic."

I love this colour scheme, although I'd push more for the cream colour featured on the Minnesota All-Star Game jerseys than the shade used by Shinebox. That being said, the Atlantic blue works well, the striping and colour blocks work nicely, and the aesthetic is pleasing. My only quibble? The WHITE BEARS should probably be WHITE at home. Call me crazy, but that just makes more sense.

In any case, the Wild are who they are despite them seemingly being close to being the White Bears. It's always interesting to hear what could have been had things gone a little differently, so hearing that we almost had the Minnesota White Bears invade the NHL doesn't seem as crazy as, say, the Minnesota town of Proctor - population: 3072 - seriously giving thought to adding its name as an NHL expansion city in 2015.

I'll just end this article with that Proctor fact. And white bears.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!