An elk in Alberta (Photo by Aldakang, CC-BY-4.0)
Citing a desire to preserve common heritage and out of respect to the Inuit and Indigenous people of Canada, the Edmonton Eskimos franchise announced that it would rename itself the “Edmonton Elks”.
New Name. Same Game.
Let’s play some football. #ElksCharge pic.twitter.com/RhtwzcAmhv
— Edmonton Elks (@GoElks) June 1, 2021
In USA Today Des Bieler reports:
“This was a process that originally began back in early August of 2020 with an initial discussion around the possibilities,” Presson said in his statement. “Thanks to our wonderful fans and partners across the board for their input, dialogue and debate. Rebranding a team is hard. Rebranding a team with 100 years of history is even more challenging and we worked hard to meld that history with something new and meaningful.”
Edmonton said it went with a plural version of “elk” that uses an “s” after consulting with linguistics experts from the Oxford Dictionary and the University of Alberta. That name proved popular “through all demographic categories,” according to the team.