Just over a half a century ago, as the calendar flipped from 1973 to 1974, Washington’s soon-to-be NHL expansion team was still lacking one critical element: a name. Writing in the Dec. 30, 1973 edition of The Washington Star-News, Russ White wrote the following introductory paragraph to a piece entitled, “The Ice Age In Washington:”
The Ice Age has arrived in Washington, as nearly 30,000 people await the first word on the season tickets that they have requested to see an expansion hockey team that as of today has no players, no coach, and no name.
White concluded his piece with a quote from Hockey Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt, the team’s first ever general manager. Schmidt had been hired to that post in the summer of ’73, and he and a handful of scouts were essentially the team’s first employees.
The naming of the team Schmidt said, is an important piece of business. “I want them to come up with something snappy,” he said. “Wherever the team goes, it will go with its logo.”
The team would continue to have no coach until May of 1974, and it would have no players until June of 1974. But by Jan. 2, 1974, whatever basic infrastructure of the team/front office that was in existence at that time, came up with a “Name The Team” contest. Local newspapers carried the details of the contest in their Jan. 3 editions.
In a brief piece entitled “Centre Opens Name Contest” in the Jan. 3, 1974 edition of The Washington Post, original Caps’ owner Abe Pollin is quoted. “We have an NHL team. We have a place to play, but what we don’t have is a name for the team,” said Abe Pollin, owner of the new franchise.
The piece elaborates on details of a new contest to name the team, reminding us of what a different world it was half a century ago.
Anyone except Capital Centre staff and their families, is eligible to enter the contest. First prize is two season tickets to all NHL games at the Centre during the 1974-75 season.
Entries must be postmarked no later than midnight, Jan. 17, when the contest closes. There is no limit to the number of times one person can enter.”
Alert readers will note that even before the team was named “Capitals,” its new arena already bore the name “Capital Centre.” As such, the “contest” wasn’t as much of a contest as it was a suggestion box. More than 12,000 entries rolled in, containing over a hundred different suggested names for the expansion franchise.
In a Jan. 11, 1974 article entitled “What’s In A Name?” for The Star-News, White reported on some of the possibilities fans had suggested by that point.
More than 4,500 postcards bearing nearly 4,000 different names have reached their goal like a well-placed slap shot. The count is expected to climb well past 10,000 before the contest closes at midnight Jan. 17.
Then it will be up to team owner Abe Pollin to pick the best of the names.”
Alphabetically the suggestions range from Aardvarks to Zips. The most popular name is Comets, as 156 cards have suggested. There have been 156 Pandas, 57 Blades, 54 Ice Caps, three Cheetahs, two Turtles and one Koo-Koos.”
Once all the cards and entries were in and the deadline had passed, Pollin began sifting through all the entries, and he and wife Irene mulled them over and discussed them. Traveling to and from Seattle for the NBA All-Star game in January of 1974, Pollin reportedly perused those 12,000 entries on the cross-continent flight to the Emerald City.
