PWHL expansion teams get names: Detroit Clutch, San Jose Sea Lions, Vegas Vanguards, Hamilton Havoc

The Professional Women’s Hockey League’s four new expansion teams finally have nicknames and logos to accompany them in preparing to make their on-ice debuts next month.

It’s game on for the Detroit Clutch, San Jose Sea Lions, Vegas Vanguards and Hamilton Havoc.

The four markets were selected this spring in expanding the PWHL from eight to 12 teams, and doubling the league’s size since launching on Jan. 1, 2024. Season 4 begins with an opening weekend set for Dec. 5-6. The unveiling of the logos and nicknames on Tuesday comes a month after the PWHL revealed the teams’ color schemes.

Though merchandise featuring the logos and nicknames is now available for sale, they will not be incorporated on the expansion teams’ jerseys until next season due to the branding not being available when PWHL jerseys were placed for order. The four teams will instead have their city names printed across the front.

“Each team’s unique identity was built with the spirit and legacy of the community a the center,” the PWHL said in a news release. “Women-led PWHL design teams were at the helm of the process to develop each city's brand identity.”

The league said the Vegas and San Jose logo designs included collaboration from the creative agency of Doubleday and Cartwright.

— The Clutch offers a double meaning in being both a nod to Detroit’s automotive industry and the ability to deliver under pressure. The circular black and white logo features an automotive wheel outlined in red with the word “Clutch” written across in art deco-inspired typography.

— The Sea Lions tie in the mammals populating the Bay Area waters with a circular logo featuring a sea lion’s head and torso emerging from the waves with a color scheme of blue and sunset orange. The name also pays homage to the West Coast Negro Baseball Association’s San Francisco Sea Lions, who played in 1946 and featured Toni Stone, the first woman to play regularly in a major men’s professional league, the league said.

— Vanguards was inspired by the pioneering spirit that helped shape the West and features the primary colors of cactus green, desert gold and navy. The logo features a kit fox native to the Mojave Desert and known to thrive in difficult conditions. The fox's ears are shaped in a ‘V’ to represent Vegas.

— The league said the Havoc’s name was inspired by the "balance between the forces of industry and nature in Hamilton, as steel mills rise alongside the natural beauty of the Niagara Escarpment” in Ontario. The logo features Hamilton’s official bird, the peregrine falcon, perched atop steel-forged lettering spelling out Havoc, with a color scheme of rusted steel, tempered gold and orange.

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