The Vegas Golden Knights may not keep their nickname — or colors — much longer if the U.S. Army gets its way, claiming that the team’s name and colors are a trademark infringement.
The Army filed the motion to the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell.
“(Vegas) has chosen and used a similar black+gold/yellow+white color scheme on uniforms, marketing, advertisements and its hockey arena, mimicking the opposer’s colors and further adding to the likelihood of confusion of the public,” the motion said, via ESPN.
This is not the first time the Army has expressed discontent with the Golden Knights, who began play in the NHL this season. The Army began this process back in September but finally gained enough traction Wednesday.
Vegas’ owner, Bill Foley, is a West Point graduate, and GM George McPhee directly has stated before that the team’s name is an homage to the Black Knights, which almost became the team’s nickname.
“The notice of opposition also cites,” wrote Rovell, “a tweet from TSN that quotes McPhee as saying, ‘We were going to be the Black Knights, but we already had the Blackhawks in the league, so the league was trying to get us to come up with another name, so another name used at West Point is the Golden Knights for the parachute team.'”
Vegas also responded with less than subtle shade at the Army’s claim:
The @GoldenKnights release statement on Dept. of Army going after them on trademark violation grounds.
"We are not aware of a single complaint from anyone attending our games that they were expecting to see the parachute team and not a professional hockey game" = fine art. pic.twitter.com/981zkOqD9n
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) January 11, 2018
In any event, get those Golden Knights jerseys now, because not only will they be from the inaugural season, but they also may be a true one of a kind.
