What's Your Favorite Hockey Appliance?

It may seem like a silly question, but what is your favorite hockey kitchen appliance? Some will shake their head at this question, but there might be one you like for a specific reason. For example, players are known to drink coffee before games, so maybe it's a coffee machine or an espresso machine. Maybe it's the refrigerator where a number of cold drinks and snacks can be kept for rehydrating and replenishing the bodies with fluids and nutrients. We often hear of rinks being described as "deep freezes" which would indicate a very cold freezer. For one AHL team, though, they were almost a very specific type of appliance, and it may not be one that would be obvious when it comes to the hockey connection.

For those who aren't in the know or perhaps missed the IHL era, the Grand Rapids Griffins were granted an expansion franchise into the International Hockey League after they lifted the city metropolitan population requirements of one million people and thanks, in part, to Grand Rapids having a fully-financed new arena and 8000 season-ticket deposits pledged for a new team. At the time, the IHL was impressed with the community response to having a minor-league hockey franchise, the new venue in which a team could play, and the finances of the ownership group comprised of Amway executives Dave Van Andel and Dan DeVos.

With the team beginning play in 1995-96, the new Grand Rapids IHL franchise needed a name, and the team decided to hold a a "name the team" contest in June 1995 with the only requirements being that the names had to have some sort of permutation "with a face... with a personality, that we can translate into a mascot of some sort" as reported by Gretchen Flemming in The Grand Rapids Press. Clearly, that would open the door to all sorts of options of fans to select as a potential team name and identity, and the suggestions came flooding into the West Michigan Hockey, Inc. offices.

Ultimately, "Grand Rapids Griffins" was the name selected for the team, and they'd begin a long and successful run through the IHL that would see them incorporated into the AHL for the 2001-02 season. Tonight, however, it seems the Griffins are going to play a little "What if..." with their jerseys and franchise as the image to the right shows one of the team names that was submitted. Where it got to in the evaluation process is anyone's guess, but it would have been one of the rare times a kitchen appliance was worn a professional hockey team's jerseys as "Griffins" was up against the "Flying Toasters" in the team name contest!

If you're curious, the Griffins did don the Flying Toasters jerseys tonight for their game against the Belleville Senators, and the Toasters got six different goal scorers to pace them to the 6-4 win in front of a sold-out Van Andel Arena! The 10,834 fans saw the Toasters heat up as William Wallinder and Albert Johansson scored first-period goals to put Grand Rapids out in front 2-0. Four second period goals by the Senators would erase the 2-0 lead plus a Tyler Spezia goal early in the third period as the Senators carried the 4-3 lead to the third period, but Austin Czarnik, Elmer Soderblom, and an empty-netter from Jonatan Berggren in the final frame would push the Toasters to victory! Maybe the Grand Rapids Flying Toasters should play another game in the future with that kind of success?

The recap can be found here, and the photo gallery of the game is linked here if you want to see more amazing Flying Toasters jerseys. As cool as the Flying Toasters are, however, they were not the first kitchen appliance to appear on a team's jersey in the AHL. You may think I'm joking about this since kitchen appliances aren't commonly selected as professional hockey team identities, but another former IHL team beat the Griffins to the punch when it came to making a connection to an appliance! The fun part is that this other team isn't that far away from Grand Rapids, Michigan, so one might laugh at the midwest's dedication to hockey and kitchen appliance connections!

Back in 2019-20, the Milwaukee Admirals celebrated the team's 50th season of existence. In doing so, they reached back into team history to bring forth some interesting news and notes, and one of them was how the team was named. Again, for those not knowing, the Admirals were founded "when local businessman and appliance store owner Erwin Merar Frank bought the team in 1970 and decided to name the team after one of his most successful brands, "Admiral Appliance", meaning that the Milwaukee Admirals were named after a kitchen appliance! The team decided to honour that heritage by wearing the Fridge jerseys on Saturday, April 4th, 2020 when they hosted the Rockford IceHogs. Of course, 2020 was the year that COVID-19 decided to introduce itself and that game never happened - the Fridge jerseys were never actually worn on the ice!

Historically, the Admirals never wore the Fridge logo in their history, but they were technically first to have an appliance as a logo. Those Flying Toasters are pretty sweet, though, and they technically may be the first appliance logo to be used in an official AHL game. Either way, the Flying Toasters story is just as cool as the Admirals' Fridge logo story, and that's gotta count for something.

It might be food for thought, but appliance logos are pretty cool. I'm not saying they're a recipe for success in any way, but it can be an ingredient for a fun night at the rink. Of course, everyone's tastes differ in hockey, so maybe the appliance logos simply don't excite your palette. Whatever the case, the Flying Toasters were enough to whet my appetite for more fun, appliance-themed logos, so let's hope this won't be the only serving of kitchen-themed appliances we see!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!