An Early Marketing Test?

The logo to the left was one of the proposed logos for the Colorado Avalanche when the team had relocated from Quebec City to Denver. The name would have been the Rocky Mountain Extreme, and Denver Post scribe Adrian Dater has a whole article on how it was he who broke the story of the name back in the summer of 1995. Honestly, that name is pretty bad when one considers how well "Colorado Avalanche" has worked for the past thirty years, but it seems that Dater's recounting of the story may have left out a few crucial details about how the team actually was named. Let's dive into this story!

We'll start on August 11, 1995 with a Scripps Howard article from Jim Benton about the new Colorado Avalanche name and logo.

Benton's article makes it very clear that the "Rocky Mountain" name was dismissed early in the process when it came to naming the relocated franchise. Dater's recounting of him getting the scoop on everyone in the summer of 1995 sounds like it may be true, but it seems the man quoted in Dater's article, Charlie Lyons, is nowhere to be found in terms of franchise ownership despite him being President of COMSAT, who purchased the Nordiques, and Ascent Entertainment. Despite his name being left out of Benton's article, Lyons was the brains behind the Rocky Mountain Extreme name which was what he had envisioned for the club... until everything changed.

As written in the Sports Business Journal back on April 18, 1995, "Comsat has negotiated a deal to buy the Nordiques for $75M should the team leave Quebec". As we know, the team did move from Quebec City to Denver officially on June 21, 1995 after Comsat purchased the team on May 24, and the newly-relocated team needed a name for its fans in its new home. Lyons, a skiing enthusiast, kicked around the idea of using "Rocky Mountain" as part of the name in some way for regional purposes, and it almost looked like Dater's "Extreme" story was valid. Almost.

I say "almost" because a July 25, 1995 Sports Business Journal article shows that the "Extreme" name was out in favour of the Avalanche. According to the SBJ report, "Comsat COO Charlie Lyons reportedly likes the 'Avalanche' name because of marketing possibilities," keeping the disaster's name at the top of the list for team names. So how did "Extreme" fall off the table when it came to team names?

Ryan Warner of Colorado Public Radio seems to have the answer in his December 1, 2016 article. He interviewed Dater about the whole saga, and included this excerpt from Dater's book, 100 Things Avalanche Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, that reads,

"And then, the Dave Logan Show happened. A former NFL wide receiver with the Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos, Logan hosted a popular sports talk radio show on the state's biggest AM station, 850 KOA.

The day of the story, Logan fielded call after call from fans just ripping the hell out of the hockey team's new name. It was just an, ahem, avalanche of negative public opinion. Everybody hated it.

With ownership getting feedback from fans who called into the radio show to voice their displeasure, it was pretty clear that they needed to pivot quickly. Dater stated in his story that the Avalanche quickly changed their story about the Rocky Mountain Extreme name, kicking off a fan vote for the new team name that featured eight pre-selected potential names: Avalanche, Black Bears, Cougars, Outlaws, Rapids, Renegades, Storm, and Wranglers. Those names were quickly narrowed down by fan votes, and, according to the following video from Nostalgice, the winning name was not Avalanche.


We've gone from Rocky Mountain Extreme to Colorado Cougars in the span of a few weeks, but even that name didn't stick as the Jim Benton article stated that Shawn Hunter, Executive President of the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets, had said that Avalanche was the first choice early on, and that the public had "favored" the name. That brings us back to Lyons' reasons for the name: he liked it, and the opportunity for marketing possibilities. With the Avalanche name finishing among the highest-voted names in the "Name the Team" contest, it seems like the team name was validated by the Colorado market's response to it. In the end, we got to see the final product on August 11, 1995 as that was the day the Avalanche came to be.

Obviously, there were some half-truths and deception that happened when it came to Dater being fed the story about the Rocky Mountain Extreme, but his tale of how everything went down fits the smoke-and-mirror show that the Colorado Avalanche ownership team appeared to be running in the summer of 1995. Some have alleged that Lyons gave Dater the name and logos to be printed as an early market test to see if fans would respond positively to it, and the feedback received by the team allowed them to avoid a potential gaffe before registering their name and trademarks with the NHL and the trademark offices. To me, that seems like a lot of work just for feedback, but I've never unveiled a brand-new NHL franchise name.

As for the spin that the Avalanche owners put on the story of the name, the truth of what actually happened over the summer of 1995 with the team name may indeed stay buried under the snow as it seems they went to "Extreme" lengths to land on "Avalanche".

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!