I know there likely aren't a lot of people across Canada who keep up with ECHL signings, but it's always cool to see a former U SPORTS player getting his shot with a professional team. For some, they've gone to the ECHL before landing in U SPORTS, but former Golden Bears defender Aidan De La Gorgendiere went full circle with a stop in the ECHL before playing with the University of Alberta followed by a jump to the NCAA with the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks. He signed with the ECHL's Tahoe Knight Monsters this week which is awesome, but I have a more serious question: what will his name look like on his jersey once he gets into a game?
I ask this because there seems to be different fonts and capitalization used depending on the team for whoch De La Gorgendiere has played. Obviously, that's a heckuva last name, but it's the "De La" that seems to be changed whenever he moves to a new team. With what seems like zero consistency in the capitalization of his last name's surname particle, let's take a look at how Aidan De La Gorgendiere's name has appeared over the span of his hockey career so far.
Aidan played prep hockey at Yale Hockey Academy in his hometown of Abbotsford, BC. I didn't read every scouting report, but everything I could find online suggested he was a smart player who looked for offensive opportunities while not shying away from the defensive side of the game. What was harder to find was an image of how his name was spelled on his jersey, but the good news is that I did find a video where I grabbed a screenshot.
Team Surname Particle: DE LA
As shown, Yale Academy went with standard block lettering all of the same size across De La Gorgendiere's shoulders. There's absolutely nothing wrong with how the name is displayed, and the name looks uniform above his #22. If this was how his name is displayed moving forward, I wouldn't be writing this article so be ready for some changes to how the surname particle looks.
Aidan's work at Yale Academy got him noticed by WHL scouts, and the Saskatoon Blades wanted him as part of their team as
they chose him fifth-overall in the 2017 CHL Bantam Draft. His parents are both from Saskatoon so he was excited to head to the Blades despite growing up in British Columbia.
Team Surname Particle: D
E L
A
Saskatoon introduced De La Gorgendiere at a press conference in their locker room, and you can see the name on the back of his jersey has the surname particle with a half-sized "E" and "A" compared to the rest of the letters. What makes this weird is that Saskatoon appears again below.
Aidan's play got him noticed by Team Canada as he was invited to Canada's U17 camp where he would eventually be placed on Team Black for the 2018 U17 World Challenge. In five games at the tournament, he had two helpers as Team Black finished in fifth-place with a 5-3 win over Team White.
Team Surname Particle: DE LA
This is standard Team Canada block font, so I didn't expect there to be any variations on how De La Gorgendiere's name would be displayed. Yes, this was the best photo I could find, and that's certainly him as there were no other "De La" players on the Team Black roster. In fact, Canada didn't have any "Dela" players either, so this made narrowing down De La Gorgendiere in photos easier.
Aidan's time with the Blades lasted five years plus one game as an underager in 2017-18, but he was a solid player in the WHL. Over those five seasons, he scored 22 goals and 133 assists in 248 games while adding three goals and 18 points in 28 playoff games. However, he would go undrafted by NHL teams.
Team Surname Particle: DE LA
I don't know if this was a team decision with respect to how names were displayed on jerseys or if De La Gorgendiere made the request himself, but you can see he was back to standard block lettering as a player. Again, there's nothing wrong with a uniform name in an easy-to-read font across the back of one's jersey, but we're not close to being done with this examination of Aidan's name.
Having not been selected by any NHL teams in the entry drafts, Aidan decided to make the jump to the professional ranks by
signing with the ECHL's Atlanta Gladiators in 2023! He didn't play a lot as he dressed in ten games where he scored one goal and added four helpers, but he got a taste of pro hockey!
Team Surname Particle: D
E L
A
We're back to the half-sized "E" and "A" with respect to how Atlanta displayed De La Gorgendiere's name on his jersey. Being that he was only with Atlanta for ten games, the sample size is very limited, but it appears there was no change to capitalize his name like we saw with Saskatoon above.
After parting ways with Atlanta midway through the 2023-24 season, Aidan would
land at the University of Alberta where he suited up for the Golden Bears! In 38 games in Canada West, he'd score eight goals and 37 assists as he was part of a solid Golden Bears team, but they fell in the Canada West playoffs in both seasons, not qualifying for Nationals in both seasons.
Team Surname Particle: DE LA
The Golden Bears went with the uniform block letters for De La Gorgendiere's name. What's funny about Alberta's uniforms is that De La Gorgendiere's name almost covers the entire shoulder yoke stripe on the back of the jersey. I often joke about long player names stretching from elbow to elbow, but this example was almost shoulder to shoulder!
With the NCAA opening its doors to former CHL players, Aidan made the
jump to the University of Nebraska-Omaha where he joined the Mavericks in Division-1 hockey. In 33 games, he had three goals and ten assists as the Mavericks skated to a 12-24-0 record before falling to North Dakota.
Team Surname Particle: de la
Omaha presented the only lower-case surname particle of the bunch to date, but it's clearly noticeable on the back of De La Gorgendiere's jersey. I've looked at this image a number of times, and I almost feel like, at the very least, the "D" and "L" should be capitalized based on what we've seen with other teams. The lower-case "E" and "A" can stay if that's Omaha's preference, but having lower-case letters for a name is pretty rare.
In my research on De La Gorgendiere's various surname particles, I came across a handful of articles by reputable news outlets that also seemed to put their own spin on his name. WOWT's Clayton Collier wrote a great piece on
Aidan honouring his mom, Marla, through a hockey ritual he started after she passed away from lung cancer in 2019. In his article, though, he spelled De La Gorgendiere's surname particle as "de La" which completely threw me for a loop, but then capitalized the "D" and "L" later in the article! Mass confusion!
That last capitalization could have simply been his word processing software formatting De La Gorgendiere's name with a capital "D" as the first letter in a sentence, but Collier started other sentences with Aidan's last name showing the "de La" surname particle. In short, nothing makes sense, there is no consistency to Aidan's last name on jerseys or in print, and I still don't know what Tahoe will do!
The Tahoe Knight Monsters host the Cincinnati Cyclones tonight on "Star Wars Night" at the Tahoe Blue Event Center, so this could be a pretty awesome debut for De La Gorgendiere if he's in the lineup this evening. Tahoe hosts Cincinnati tomorrow as well before visiting the Allen Americans next weekend and the Rapid City Rush to finish the season, so we'll see if De La Gorgendiere plays in any of those games and how his name looks on the back of his jersey when he does.
Might we see a new spin on his surname particle? It could happen! To date, we've had four "DE LA", two "D
E L
A", one "de la", and a print version of "de La" and "De La". What name chaos will Tahoe bring us?
Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!
UPDATES!
I finally tracked down an image of Aidan wearing a Knight Monsters jersey with a clear shot of the back of his jersey. It should be noted that he scored on April 4 against Cincinnati to record his first ECHL goal at 7:17 of the second period when his shot trickled through Cincinnati goalie Kaidan Mbereko, ending up in the net! But we're here for info on his last name!
Team Surname Particle: DE LA
It appears that Tahoe doesn't change anything when it comes to the names on the backs of the jerseys, sticking with the tried-and-tested block font which is easy to read. At first, I thought the "DE" was smaller than the rest of De La Gorgendiere's name, but the way the jersey is folded gives a bit of an optical illusion. Based on this image and video image of his goal, all of the letters are the same size, making his surname particle just part of the fun with Tahoe.
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