How the Yukon Rush got their name

[scoop 3,426]

For those who aren't aware, the Geneva Rush of the VHLE were originally a VHLM expansion team, joining as the Yukon Rush back in Season 31. They won four Founder's Cups in their first eight seasons. They would only win twice more in the next 42 seasons before they moved to Geneva and joined the VHLE. This move was particularly disappointing to me, the founder and original GM of the Yukon Rush. Needing something to write about for the week, I decided to tell the tale of how the team got their name.

 

 

This is Yukon Cornelius. He was a prospector in the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer television special. No, I didn't put a team in Yukon because of this character from a television special that I used to watch with my family every year as a child. That would be silly. I doubt I even had him in mind at all, but I felt like including a picture of him anyway. I'm sort of telling you the origin a bit backwards, because the team was placed in Yukon because I needed a suitable place for a team called the Rush. That is how a Canadian territory with a population under 50,000 ended up with a VHLM team.

 

 

The Rush were in fact named after a robot dog from the Mega Man franchise, which happens to be a favorite of mine. This was the inspiration for the name, and I placed them in Yukon, because it worked. I like a good team name that suits the location. Back in the late 1800's, there was a gold rush in the Klondike region in Yukon. People seemed to like the name, though I don't know if I had ever actually mentioned the true inspiration behind the name.

 

This wasn't the only potential name I had come up with. Another favorite of mine was the Anchorage Owls. I didn't have as much of a connection to that name, however, and when I put up a poll for the league to give their input, the Yukon Rush beat out the Anchorage Owls and whatever other options had been on the poll, which I don't recall.

Edited May 15, 2023 by scoop