VHLM Rebrand Week: Ottawa

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VHLM Rebrand Week: Ottawa

This week has been determined to be the week in which teams across the VHL, and subsequent minor leagues, rebrand for a bit of fun and to allow greater interaction with the fans. This time around, the fans of the current Ottawa Lynx were polled in order to find a different animal to represent the team. Voting opened up a couple weeks ago asking fans which animal native to Ottawa would replace the beloved Lynx the best. With entries ranging from, Geese to Meese, (yes I know that’s improper pluralization but hey, it rhymes) the fans provided many different options to vote for. This year it has come down to a close race between a few very close competitors, Owls, Porcupine, Grey Wolves, and River Otters. The Owls came in with 45,243 votes just beating out the Geese by a couple hundred votes. The Porcupine reached 67,932 votes, a fair number of votes just shy of 7% of the Ottawa population. And we’re down to the final two options, the Grey Wolves and the River Otters. This season's rebrand for the Ottawa Lynx has been voted to be the Ottawa River Otters. The River Otters received 128,673 votes beating out the Grey Wolves by around 14,000 votes. By a slim margin the River Otters pulled ahead and were selected. There has been some noise about this on social media particularly questioning the ferocity of an Otter. Which, given the look of the animal itself versus how well the team has been doing lately seems to be a fair point. The now River Otters are leading the league with a 34-8-5 record. Jillian Woods and Kevin OConner are both leading the league, Woods with Points for a Defenseman(54) and OConner for Shorthanded Goals(1). Of course we can’t forget the unbelievable performance from Hugo Boss this season, leading the league in wins(34), shutouts(8), and goals against average(1.86). Now back to the topic of Otters. The River Otter is native to much of Canada and the United States, really only avoiding warmer climates. River Otters obviously thrive in cooler climates and in areas where there are an abundance of streams, ponds, and other bodies of water. While they may seem pretty cute and friendly on the outside, they can really tear up some fish and smaller mammals. Their main source of nourishment is fish and mussels and whatever lurks around in the rivers but from time to time they’ll go to shore and hunt for muskrats and small rabbits. They move quite quickly and are resilient to the cold much like the hockey players they were chosen to represent this year. In short, I think the fans came up with a great replacement for the Lynx. The river otter may not be quite as intimidating as a lynx but they’re unsuspectingly able to do what needs to be done when the time comes. The Ottawa fans have spoken and decided that the Lynx will be rebranded to the Ottawa River Otters for S93!