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The foam antlers will become part of the green and gold fan dress code because Edmonton’s CFL team has adopted a new name: Edmonton Elks.
After a year-long consultation process, team partners, fans and even some language experts participated in the process. The football club officially announced the name of the elk at a press conference on Tuesday.
Chris Presen, the team’s president and chief executive, said that the club is proud to announce its new name and said he believes they have taken the time to make sure they “do it right”.
“We look forward to the upcoming season, and for this, we need a name,” Presen said.
“After your opinions, a lot of debate, and deliberation, we came up with the name we are proud of today.”
He admitted that it is a “long road” to get the team’s new name, but “we’ve taken the time to make sure we did it right and we know we did it.”
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the club stated that the name Elk was “highly favored” by fans.
The team was named last year
Edmonton’s CFL franchise removed the Eskimo name last year. The NFL Washington team made a similar decision because the team is under pressure to eliminate racist or stereotyped names.
The controversy surrounding the old name has plagued the team for years, and sponsors recently threatened to withdraw support if the team does not change its nickname.
New name. The same game.
Let’s play football. #ElksCharge pic.twitter.com/RhtwzcAmhv
In July last year, the board of directors announced that it would abandon the name and conduct a “full participation process” to find a suitable replacement.
Fans were asked to weigh the seven candidates for the new name. Elk, Evergreens, Evergolds, Eclipse, Elkhounds, Eagles, and Elements were all listed as possibilities in the online survey published in February.
In a statement on Tuesday, the team said that after the investigation showed that the Elks were favored by fans, they also consulted with players, staff and language experts at the University of Alberta, and they suggested some minor adjustments.
The statement read: “When the team heard the opinions of the players and coaches, they voted for the Elk by an overwhelming majority, and the choice became clearer.”
“After a long debate, I consulted with linguistic experts from the Oxford Dictionary and the Department of Linguistics of American Universities, and finally chose the name’Elk’, adding’s’ to the original choice of’Elk’.
The statement went on to say that the new name “reflects the green and gold and the speed, power and resilience of northern Alberta.”
The team was founded in 1949 and has been known as the Edmonton Football Team or EE Football Team after abandoning its old name. The team’s logo continues to feature two E’s.
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